This book on the security context in the Black Sea region is a timely endeavour and substantive contribution to understanding the state of play in the region and its linkages to the rest of the world. With contributions from analysts from Europe, the United States, Russia, Ukraine and Turkey, the book provides a holistic perspective. Post-Cold War developments have increased interest in the Black Sea region and the role of the regional and extra-regional actors in its security issues: this volume examines the position of the United States; NATO’s involvement; the EU’s engagement; Russia and Turkey’s aspirations alongside the policies of the other states in the region as they seek a role for themselves. It illustrates and investigates key concerns such as security, energy and energy security, regionalism and good governance; and questions why a cooperative security framework (or other regional schemes which could accommodate the needs of all stakeholders) has to date never become a reality. This book adds to the growing body of research on the region, presenting the facts of the current situation and asking what can be done in the Black Sea region for it to survive given its precarious security environment. This book was published as a special issue of Southeast European and Black Sea Studies.

In this publication possible ways to promote security cooperation in the Wider Black Sea Area are being addressed. The area holds major importance for Euro-Atlantic security. Strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, the region, after the dual NATO-EU enlargement in 2004-2007, became part of the periphery of the common Euro-Atlantic security system, with critical value for European energy security and the war on terrorism. The region faces a variety of security challenges, including regional conflicts, ethnic strife, terrorism, and powerful organized crime, while many of the countries have weak institutions, turbulent political systems, unstable economies and lack of democracy. In addition, the traffic of drugs to the West, the steady stream of militancy from the Middle East, and the energy lines from the oil and gas-rich regions of the East to an energy-hungry Europe gradually define the Wider Black Sea Area as a region urgently requiring political attention and investment in its security. This publication is intended to provide fresh ideas on the possible areas of security cooperation, even as the authors agreed that comprehensive, far-reaching policies are hard to attain in the near future.

The idea for this book is derived from the scantiness of academic references on the European Union’s policies towards the Black Sea, relative to this region’s officially stated significance for the EU. Even though the EU plays a vital role in Black Sea political agendas, the EU’s cooperation with the region is not extensively covered by academic discussions and literature. This is mostly due to the fact that the EU’s focus on foreign affairs is mainly associated with the Balkans, as part the current and potential expansion, and the Middle East, as a direct consequence of the upheaval of the Arab Spring. The Black Sea region is crucially important for the EU because of the opportunities and challenges that the region presents, both politically and socio-economically. Contributions to this book mostly focus on specific issues of EU–Black Sea cooperation, from conflict to the environment to democracy, and how these particular relationships are perceived within the region as well as through the lenses of stakeholders such as Russia, Turkey, and the USA. Overall, the collection focuses on projecting a more efficient role and a holistic strategy for the EU in its approach towards the Black Sea region, testifying to the need for a strong EU presence. For this reason, the Black Sea area remains ‘the neighbourhood too close to, yet still far from, the European Union’. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies.

In this publication possible ways to promote security cooperation in the Wider Black Sea Area are being addressed. The area holds major importance for Euro-Atlantic security. Strategically located at the crossroads of Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia, the region, after the dual NATO-EU enlargement in 2004-2007, became part of the periphery of the common Euro-Atlantic security system, with critical value for European energy security and the war on terrorism. The region faces a variety of security challenges, including regional conflicts, ethnic strife, terrorism, and powerful organized crime, while many of the countries have weak institutions, turbulent political systems, unstable economies and lack of democracy. In addition, the traffic of drugs to the West, the steady stream of militancy from the Middle East, and the energy lines from the oil and gas-rich regions of the East to an energy-hungry Europe gradually define the Wider Black Sea Area as a region urgently requiring political attention and investment in its security. This publication is intended to provide fresh ideas on the possible areas of security cooperation, even as the authors agreed that comprehensive, far-reaching policies are hard to attain in the near future.

Offering theoretical insights on region building, this book explores the attempts to formulate a political and institutional vision for the Black Sea region in the post-9/11 era and in the context of the enlargements of the EU and NATO. It investigates in depth these attempts, viewed as a failure by the key actors involved, in order to understand how regions emerge in international politics as well as how and why they may fail to come into being. To this end, the book explores a range of factors that impacted region building in the Black Sea, considering the role of region builders involved, their practices and the context of their actions, and the spatial representations and security discourses that were integral to the region building process. Hence, attention is paid to how these factors both enabled and constrained the discursive construction of the Black Sea region, thus identifying the elements that distinguish the Black Sea from other successful cases of region building. Based on critical approaches towards international relations and political geography, this book both expands and deepens the scope and understanding of regions and will thus appeal to academics and students in the fields of International Relations, Security Studies, Political Geography, and Regional Integration.