June 1, 2006

Romania Organizes First Black Sea Forum

On June 5, Romania hosts the Black Sea Forum for Dialogue and Partnership—an initiative the country launched in December 2005 to examine the future identity of this geopolitically strategic though divergent region. Prior to the high-level summit, Romanian Ambassador Sorin Ducaru and Phillip Henderson, vice president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States , held a press breakfast to highlight the upcoming forum.

Both men stressed that the forum would not just be another seminar on the Black Sea region, pointing to the fact that this venture marks the first time that a comprehensive framework of dialogue and interaction among all the actors involved in the region would be discussed at the highest political levels. Among those invited are heads of states and government ministers from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, Moldova, Romania, Russia, Turkey and Ukraine, as well representatives from the European Union, NATO and the United Nations.

Romanian Ambassador Ducaru said the focus will be on the region's leaders to take “ownership” of the Black Sea 's potential as a crossroads where the trans-Atlantic community, former Soviet states and greater Middle East all merge. “Frankly until then, this wasn't a concept—the Black Sea region,” Ducaru noted.

The ambassador said that in addition to exploring the area's geopolitical importance and democratic transformations, the forum will try to “find ways to adapt the essence of the region to new realities.” This means addressing a range of other issues including energy security, trans-border crime and trafficking, European integration, conflict prevention, environmental challenges and business opportunities—all with the ultimate goal of not only establishing better relations among the country representatives but also of producing tangible projects in the near future.

Although he conceded that many countries in the region—which includes Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine and Russia—are fractured by vastly different agendas and objectives, Ducaru said the forum could nevertheless be effective in finding some common ground to extreme positions. “The whole scope of this is to make those lines less relevant,” he said of the overlapping and oftentimes competing interests in the region, which includes institutions such as EU and NATO. He added that the forum could also give a voice to those nations not currently represented in the European Union and other entities.

The forum coincides with the unveiling of the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation by the German Marshall Fund (GMF), which follows the success of the organization's 10-year Balkan Trust for Democracy. GMF is working to raise $30 million from public and private donors in an effort to build democratic institutions and stimulate regional cooperation in the Black Sea region.



The Black Sea region encompasses Armenia , Azerbaijan , Bulgaria , Georgia , Greece , Moldova , Romania , Russia , Turkey and Ukraine .

http://www.washdiplomat.com/DPouch/2006/June/060106news.html#Anchor3