Making Black Sea Synergies Work

The mutual expressions of enhanced interest to move ahead with the relations between the European Union and the countries of the wider Black Sea area have grown remarkably over the past two years and in particular over the last six months. This new situation needs to be acted upon. The ongoing developments, which in a way encapsulate a renewed EU commitment to better relations with its Eastern neighbours and the Black Sea region, also had implications on the institutional front. In quick succession, the European Commission issued two relevant Communications: one on 4 December 2006 on Strengthening the European Neighbourhood Policy and another on 11 April 2007 on Black Sea Synergy – A New Regional Cooperation Initiative. Taken together, the two documents spell out the Commission’s priorities toward the Black Sea area.

Simultaneously, the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation has, since October 2005, repeatedly reaffirmed its intention to enhanced cooperation with the European Union, reiterating a policy objective that was first formulated in October 1996 by the BSEC Member States. This time, the Organisation of the BSEC came up, on 17 January 2007, with a concrete policy document titled BSEC-EU Interaction: The BSEC Approach.

Over the last 6 months, three major institutional contacts between the BSEC and the EU took place. The first of these was a dedicated meeting of the EU COEST Working Party on 4 December 2006, with the participation of the BSEC Troika. The second was a meeting, on 23 March 2007, of the BSEC Committee of Senior Officials with representatives of the EU Troika (in open format) held in Istanbul. The third was a meeting, held in Brussels on 21 May 2007, of the EU COEST Working Party with the BSEC Troika in expanded format. It should be noted that such a privilege has not been extended to any other organisation that is active in the wider Black Sea area.

Now that the BSEC policy document on BSEC-EU Interaction: The BSEC Approach and the European Commission’s Communication on Black Sea Synergy – A New Regional Cooperation Initiative are both in the public domain, we move on from the declaratory phase of interaction between the BSEC and the EU into the realm of concrete deeds with an eye to the future. It is timely and legitimate, therefore, to begin asking ourselves a number of new questions.

--Which specific areas of interaction belong to the domain of policy dialogue? Which ones make coordination necessary and possible? Which ones allow for immediate cooperative action?

--What should be the forms of BSEC involvement, as a representative regional organisation, with the various regional EU-sponsored programmes/initiatives such as the Baku Initiatives for energy and transport, TRACECA, INOGATE, the Black Sea Commission, and others?

--What steps should the BSEC take in its relations with other neighbouring regions such as Southeastern Europe or Central Asia or sub-regions such as the Danube basin?

--How could enhanced cooperation with the EU impact on the positive resolution of the outstanding issues, including “frozen conflicts” in the region and what, if any, the BSEC’s role could be?

--How to make interparliamentary dialogue more substantive?

--How to build up further the BSEC’s capacity in terms both of institutional and human resources through targeted reforms in order to cope with the challenges of enhanced interaction?

--What should be the role of the EU member states that have Observer status with the BSEC?

--How to foster cooperation among policy research communities across the BSEC space and in the EU in order to sustain and enrich the interaction in a more meaningful manner?

--How to work effectively with other non-EU actors such as the United States and Japan?
How to maintain public interest in the Black Sea region-building process?

These are serious questions that call for serious answers that need to be assessed, defined and applied.

Every single one of the main cooperation areas described in the EC Communication on Black Sea Synergy is, in varying degrees, being addressed by the BSEC in one form or another, either through its issue-specific working groups or targeted ad hoc groups of experts with a temporary remit. Even with regard to security issues, the BSEC has not avoided addressing the subject. A background a paper was agreed at expert level on Ways and Means of Enhancing the BSEC Contribution to Strengthening Security and Stability in the Region, in response to a specific assignment given in the BSEC Decennial Summit Declaration of 2002. Recently, the Secretary General of the Organisation placed the issue on the table again for consideration as one meriting attention. As a result, the BSEC Committee of Senior Officials decided, in early May 2007, to ask the International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS) to prepare suggestions on how to move forward for consideration by the BSEC member states before the end of the year.

In fact, the BSEC has been energized by enhanced interaction with the EU and has already been working toward making the synergies effective. One thematic segment where much has been done is science and technology. The ICBSS has, since 2004, managed two EU co-funded projects under the 6th Framework Programme on the technological and research potential of the Black Sea region (BS-ResPot) and on the formulation and implementation of a relevant BSEC Action Plan (ActionPlan-BS). The results of these projects have helped the Commission in defining its priorities under the 7th Framework Programme, since they have already led to enhanced cooperation among the BSEC member states in this field.

In an effort to test the potential synergies between the EU and the BSEC, the ICBSS held a workshop, in May 2007, on “Visa Facilitation between the EU and the countries of the Wider Black Sea Area”, thus starting a productive dialogue concerning the current state of affairs with a view to devising constructive and realistic solutions. The meeting, which was attended by Greece’s Deputy Foreign Minister responsible for European Affairs and by representatives of all BSEC member states, 11 EU member states and the European Commission, proved to be a fruitful experience. The participants agreed on the need for the BSEC to establish an ad hoc Group of Experts from the BSEC and the EU on visa facilitation aiming at a multilateral exchange of views for a better understanding of the issues involved. It should be noted that the recently initialled visa facilitation agreements with Russia (effective as of 1 June 2007), Ukraine, Serbia, Albania and Moldova apply to 5 out of the 9 non-EU BSEC member states.

Actually, the BSEC policy document on BSEC-EU Interaction: The BSEC Approach was carefully drafted in order to allow for synergies. For example, it cites the existing BSEC ad hoc Group of Experts on BSEC-EU Interaction as a forum for continued debate and conceptual design for future action. Paragraph 71 of the document calls for joint elaboration of a comprehensive Action Plan aimed at identifying both specific priorities and concrete projects of mutual interest. This could be enhanced with the formulation of Thematic Action Plans for each field of mutual interest.

Finally, the BSEC-EU interaction could gain a lot from the transfer of best practices and lessons learned in South Eastern Europe and other regional initiatives. However, this cannot come about without accounting for the differences between regions and the processes at play in each one of them. For example, the Black Sea cooperation has developed a strong sense of regional ownership ever since the BSEC member states launched their own initiative in 1992, while the EU has had to work hard at promoting such a notion in the Western Balkans. Also, the nature of the Black Sea regional stakeholders is different, since not all the countries of the region aspire to EU membership as is the case of South Eastern Europe. The example of Russia, which has a strategic partnership with the EU, is a case in point.

The existing institutional framework, comprehensive policy documents and legal instruments that establish the BSEC’s aims, structures, mechanism and operational procedures for fostering cooperation in specific areas needs to be properly accounted for before any solutions that may have been applied elsewhere are imported into the region. In fact, the BSEC has had the foresight to include Albania and Serbia within its ranks precisely as an indication of its understanding of the trans-regional dimension of cooperation.

One area, for example, where the European Union has a lot of catching up to do in the Black Sea context is combating organized crime and terrorism, which is also a key priority for Turkey as holder of the current Chairmanship-in-Οffice of the BSEC. Here the BSEC has a binding Agreement on Combating Organised Crime and has created a functional Network of Liaison Officers. In fact, at the last meeting of the Working Group on Combating Organised Crime and Terrorism held earlier this year, the IOM, UNODC, and the SECI Center for Combating Trans-Border Crime were represented. The BSEC has an ongoing joint project with the UNODC, while the IOM put forward a proposal for a joint BSEC-IOM approach to managing migration.

In brief, there is a need for more dialogue, cooperation and coordination so that duplication and the recycling of initiatives are avoided where they can be avoided. The BSEC acquis should be properly and jointly assessed so that, in their future interaction, the BSEC and the EU can make sure that the synergies they seek to promote are transparent, coherent and inclusive. Both the European Commission’s Black Sea Synergy and the BSEC’s BSEC-EU Interaction: The BSEC Approach are excellent starting points for further convergence of priorities in order to make the existing synergies effective, mutually beneficial and result-oriented.