Region-building as trust-building: the EU’s faltering involvement in the Black Sea region

Abstract

The half decade since the ‘Colour Revolutions’ and the historic expansion of the European Union towards the former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe has proven that EU policy in the Black Sea area is in a bind. It is incapable of making significant leaps forward, i.e. by encouraging closer integration in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Moreover, it is not capable of seeing the consequences of the scarce appetite for reforms. This article proposes an assessment of EU policy in the Black Sea region through the lens of trust. The interpretation is informed by a constructivist epistemology of power in international relations, which takes the notion of ‘region building’ as key inspiration behind key EU policy of the past five years. The article concludes by arguing that, despite the continuing gloom hovering above the EU and its international role, region-building has proven a remarkable trust-building measure, but that any further development in EU policy has to come from closer political engagement both in the region and in Europe.

Keywords:

• EU
• external action service
• European partnership
• Black Sea
• regionalism
• trust

Notes

1. The account in the following paragraphs of this section is based on the research carried in Tassinari (2006), as well as on numerous conversations and interviews in Brussels by the author at the time of the inception of the Black Sea Synergy.

2. World Bank’s Worldwide Governance Indicators. Accessible at http://www.worldbank.org