The Black Sea to take centre-stage as the EU expands

Date: 21/04/05

Theorists say that 7,000 years ago the Mediterranean swelled to unprecedented proportions, transforming the Black Sea from what was a tranquil freshwater lake into the salty sea that it is today.

In two years' time, the Black Sea will be subject to another transforming tide. After years of scarcely any influence in the region, the EU will, by way of Bulgaria and Romania, run to the Black Sea's shores.

Until now the Black Sea as a region has not been the focus of EU policies. Interests, apart from those found in Athens, have largely been pursued through relations with individual countries, regional blocs or the Union's fragmented neighbourhood policy.

Some say the lack of influence betokens a lack of interest.

In the mid-1990s, with one eye on expansion to the Baltic states, Brussels showed great interest in Baltic co-operation. The same was not true of nascent Black Sea co-operation.

"There was no interest whatsoever," says Antoinette Primatarova, former Bulgarian ambassador to the EU and, in the mid-1990s, to Sweden.

Now Primatarova, who has taken up the post of programme director at Sofia's Centre for Liberal Strategies, says "the EU should think big".

As the world's second largest source of oil and gas after the Gulf, the Black Sea undoubtedly offers a wide range of trade and investment opportunities. "There is a lot of potential in the Black Sea at a European level," says Primatarova.

With Bulgarian and Romanian accession, the voices calling for this potential to be realised will grow dramatically. "It is clear the Black Sea will take on a role similar to what the Mediterranean had and later the Baltic," she says.

But it also brings challenges, not least the resolution of destabilising 'frozen' conflicts dotting the Black Sea coast from Abkhazia in Georgia to Transdniestria in Moldova and back to Ajara.

It is unlikely that the new Romanian government, with its focus on problems in neighbouring Moldova, and Bulgaria will tolerate such a hands-off attitude.

"The European Union is ready to go out to Africa but it is happy leaving Transdniestria to the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe), just not to embarrass the Russians," says Primatarova, echoing this sentiment. "[The EU] has to shoulder some of the burden."

But it is not only the frozen conflicts which threaten stability in the Black Sea. Russia's Karachai-Cherkessia, Kabardino-Balkaria and Adygea regions are all affected by the war in Chechnya, something the EU has so far been reluctant to risk its relations with Moscow over.

Traian Basescu, the Romanian president, a former ship's captain, explains that the Black Sea region is at the centre of the foreign policy preoccupations of the Romanian government.

"Sooner or later - better sooner - European politicians will detect that the Black Sea is of vital importance for EU peace, for fighting drug trafficking and illegal immigration," he says. "The Black Sea is also a bridge for arms trafficking to the Western Balkans, the Middle East, Iraq and many other conflict areas. The EU countries will have to reach the conclusion that they need to look at the Black Sea more carefully and take action."

Basescu claims that "the internationalisation of the Black Sea" is the right policy for the future.

"Look at the map: you will see the Middle East, former Soviet Union countries, Russia, NATO, the EU: it is a crossing point for many important areas," says Basescu. "When this is better understood by EU policymakers, they will understand more easily our special bilateral relations with the UK and the US." Romania has a very close relationship with Washington, he says, because "the Americans are the first to look carefully at the Black Sea".

Analysis feature on the future of the Black Sea region after the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the European Union.