A few years ago, we reported an insightful comment made at a conference by a retired Romanian general: “The Black Sea,” he said, “does not exist.” After a moment to allow the shock value of the absurd statement to fully gel, he expanded his point.
“Of course it exists,” he went on. “But it does not really exist as a strategic concept. For all the littoral states are strategically focused elsewhere.”
We agree. Vexing political issues distracting policymakers from the Black Sea’s “strategic existence” are many. From Bulgaria and Romania’s still recent entry into the European Union to the instability of Georgia and its recent war with Russia that gave birth to two new statelets, to Turkey and Armenia’s inability to resolve their own political and diplomatic relationships, there are many woes.
Which is why we have long sought to be supportive of the work of the once-sleepy Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization, or BSEC, which has begun to come into its own in recent years. Its most recent secretary general, Ambassador Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, has pulled the organization from its earlier doldrums, improving the government-to-government communication on regional issues and supporting a number of important projects including a “ring road” to connect the region.
In the same spirit, we have also been giving support to the run-up to the second annual Black Sea Energy & Economic Forum, which commences today in Istanbul. Unlike BSEC, the forum’s focus is stimulating business-to-business and civil society dialogue. In our reporting on the issues that will be front and center at this conference, organized by the Washington-based Atlantic Council, the terminology has often been vague. “Integration,” “development” and “collaboration” are all good words. Admirable aspirations. But these do not add up to a concrete vision. Our own would include a virtual education network among Black Sea universities. We would like to see movement toward a trading community; today’s Caribbean Community, or CARICOM, might be instructive, particularly in the way it has managed the parallel participation of some members in the European Union. We have long been impressed at the level of cooperation on environmental issues in the Baltic Sea, achieved through the leadership of Denmark and Russia. That most ports on the Black Sea today lack the facilities for handling of waste ship ballast as required by treaty is just once example of the point we think the Romanian general was trying to make.
Certainly we realize security issues, including the future of NATO, and its role in the region, are just one concern. We understand that the complexity of dynamic and evolving energy policy is a political thicket.
But we also think it possible for the Black Sea to exist in all its dimensions. We wish the forum success in design of a road map’s first draft.