black sea

in the protection of the environment, which in a
compulsory EU requirement.
Regarding the energy corridors, Bucharest
strongly supports Nabucco gas pipeline, a big EU
project, which is said by many analysts to be the
geo-economic “rival” of the Blue Stream II and
South Stream (the Russian parallel projects), not
because it is seeing the building of energy corridors
like a zero-sum game between Russia and the EU
states, but because this pipeline coming from
Azerbaijan and Turkey to Austria would ensure the
beginning of a real energy independence for the
EU states towards Russia. 7 EU imports too much
of its natural gas from a single country, Russia, or
from sources that are under Russian control – more
than 30% from the total imports and it’s foreseen
to have about 65-80% in 2020. Thus, EU needs to
diversify its suppliers. 8 Unfortunately, up to now,
BSEC does not have a real decision-making power
concerning the transit corridors and the interstates
negotiations are usually bilateral not
multilateral. It would be very useful to have a wide
and deep cooperative framework among EU, BSEC
and Russia in the realm of energy sharing and
transportation, but a prior condition would be the
signing and ratification of the European Energy
Charter by Russia and all the other interested states
and common rules for the access on energy
infrastructures markets.
In order to have good assessment of the
security situation in the Black Sea region, one
needs a conundrum of academic and practical
experience. Consequently, Greece’s efforts to link
the academics and policy-makers in the Black Sea
area were crowned by the setting up of the
International Center for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS),
headquartered in Athens, a project warmly
supported by Romania. In 2008, the International
Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS) is celebrating
its tenth year of existence and is may be the main
academic think tank dedicated to the study of
security, politics and economy in the region, thus
serving as a very important expertise provider for
governments and for the BSEC executive structures.
The Black Sea Trade and Development Bank,
which is the organization’s main funding mechanism,
is based in Thessaloniki and has an
important role in promoting financial stability and
investments in this region. Concerning Romania,
“the BSTDB will focus in the next four years on
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providing financial support to large and medium
sized companies engaged in particular in export
generating activities, infrastructure and financial
sector” (Romania – Country Strategy 2007-2010). 9
Greece has a strategy which insists on the benefits
of regional cooperation for promoting investments
and trade in neighboring states – “instead, for
operations undertaken in Greece, the Bank needs
to focus most on fulfillment of the regional
cooperation aspect of its mandate. Promoting
regional cooperation is important for Greece,
which borders on countries with which investment
and commercial ties had remained at very low
levels for decades. As a result, much remains to be
done to interconnect with neighboring countries
in order to improve relative efficiencies, realize
economies of scale, and achieve better complementarity.
(Greece – Country Strategy 2007-2010,
Thessaloniki, December 2006 10 ) In June 2008, at
the 10th Annual Meeting in St. Petersburg of the
Board of Governors, the Black Sea Bank posted
some impressive results for 2007 financial year,
“with 60% growth of outstanding portfolio and 15%
increase in operating income. The amount of
approved operations exceeded USD 1,3 billion”. 11
Romania was also deeply involved in the drafting
and adoption of the BSEC Economic Agenda for
the Future.
On 1 May 2006, for the first time, a Greek
representative, Ambassador, L. Chrysanthopoulos,
assumed the post of Secretary General of the
BSEC Permanent International Secretariat; he was
elected, through consensus, by the Council of
Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the BSEC member
states.
Greece had the chairmanship previously in
May-October 1999 and Athens took the necessary
actions to ensure the BSEC observer status at the
UN General Assembly. The initiative to strengthen
relations between the BSEC and the UN was
adopted in 2000 by the UN General Assembly. In
November 2006, the BSEC signed an agreement
with the United Nations Development Programme,
for the joint implementation of the Black Sea Trade
and Investment Promotion Programme. This
pioneering programme is funded jointly by Greece
and Turkey, with a symbolic financial contribution
from the BSEC. The BSEC completed negotiations
with the OECD Development Center on implementing
a programme entitled “Black Sea and
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