Xenophon Paper 2 pdf - ICBSS

THE BLACK SEA COOPERATION :
AN OUTLOOK FROM BULGARIA
Marin Lessenski
On 11 April 2007, the European Commission announced a long-awaited document
outlining the European Union’s own approach to the Black Sea region. The document
entitled ‘Black Sea Synergy - a New Regional Cooperation Initiative’ includes a long list
of priority issues for the EU in its operations in the region. In detailing the mechanisms
for carrying out its policies, the European Union (EU) has singled out the Organisation
of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) as its primary partner. This has been
a major achievement of the BSEC, which has been struggling to attract the EU’s attention
and resources for the benefit of the region. The success has been attributed in large
part to the contribution of the three BSEC member states (Bulgaria, Greece and Romania)
which are also EU member states. 1 In fact, it was Greece, which has been systematically
promoting the idea to co-opt the EU and go even beyond that by asking the EU to
develop a comprehensive Black Sea approach. 2 Bulgaria and Romania backed seriously
the Greek efforts, even in their EU pre-accession status. On its part, Bulgaria started to
prepare its own ‘Black Sea strategy’, identifying national interests and consolidating
various policy inputs in order to highlight the Black Sea region’s significance to the
country as well as outline Bulgaria’s policy approaches on specific issues.
The BSEC featured prominently in these plans. Bulgaria is a founding member of this
organisation, established in 1992 as a scheme for cooperation of eleven states around
the Black Sea. Bulgaria welcomed the institutionalisation of the initiative in 1998 in Yalta
into a full-fledged regional organisation. The broad participation in the BSEC, which
incorporates several of Bulgaria’s immediate and important neighbours such as Greece,
Romania and Turkey (also founding members) and Serbia (member of the BSEC since
2004), has broadened the potential of the organisation. Bulgaria also acknowledges
the importance of the BSEC in covering a wide range of policy issues – from economy
and trade (the primary goals of the BSEC) to transport, energy and education. Bulgaria
1 Please, refer to ‘New co-operation initiative of the European Union for the Black Sea region under the framework
of the European Neighborhood Policy was presented today’ released by the European Commission representation
in Bulgaria. Available at http://www.evropa.bg/en/del/info-pad/events.html?date=2007-05-09&eventid=2984.
2 Greece was given a mandate by the BSEC Council (Chisinau, 28 October 2005) to attract the EU, which
resulted in the document ‘Towards a Regional Dimension in the Wider Black Sea Area’ which was presented at
the meeting of the Working Party on Eastern Europe and Central Asia (COEST) in Brussels (25 January 2006).
X E N O P H O N P A P E R no 2 37