Commentary: The EU’s Black Sea Strategy
On 28 May 2025, the European Commission and the High Representative for Foreign Affairs released a comprehensive document titled "The European Union's Strategic Approach to the Black Sea Region." In many ways, the document presents a new approach. First time, such an EU document clearly prioritised security over anything else. It does not hesitate to talk the language of geopolitics. Nevertheless, it also maintains the comprehensive style typical of the EU documents. It reads something between a strategic concept note and a traditional EU technocracy document. Reading the document only twice, I put down the following comments regarding both the content of the strategy and the document itself.
A Russia Strategy in the Black Sea, rather than being a regional strategy?
What first struck me immediately was that the strategy is overwhelmingly defined by Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. Nearly every major issue—maritime security, energy infrastructure, sanctions enforcement, hybrid threats, military mobility, demining, digital resilience—is framed as a derivative of this geopolitical rupture. This centrality is understandable. Yet, the consequence is clear: the strategy reads less as a comprehensive Black Sea regional strategy and more as the EU’s de facto Russia Strategy in the Black Sea. It is deeply reactive, with much of its language and initiatives shaped around deterring, containing, or navigating Russian influence. Rather than building a forward-looking vision for the region in its own right, the Black Sea becomes primarily a theatre of contestation, where the EU mobilises tools to mitigate Russian disruption. This securitised lens may be justified by current events, but it limits the EU’s ability to foster a more holistic, inclusive, and long-term regional policy.
Türkiye, only when convenient?
Secondly, Türkiye, a coastal Black Sea state and a strategic NATO ally, features in the document—but in a somewhat instrumentalised way. Its role is framed almost entirely through the lens of the war in Ukraine and maritime stability: Türkiye’s mediation in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, its role in demining with Bulgaria and Romania, and its Customs Union with the EU. So, it is short of recognition of the importance of the engagement with Türkiye that extends beyond the Black Sea and sees a role for Türkiye in facilitating the EU's cooperation and partnerships in the South Caucasus. This need will likely be more obvious once a certain deal is reached between Ukraine and Russia, allowing Russia to turn its attention to the South Caucasus and Central Asia. Then, the EU will not be ready to balance Russia or China alone in these two regions and will come to the point of recognising Türkiye's role there, too. A next strategy document can hardly avoid it.
Where Exactly Is the Black Sea Region?
Thirdly, and perhaps the most persistent conceptual tension in the document is the fluid and imprecise definition of the "Black Sea region." In some passages, the region appears to include South Caucasus states like Armenia and Azerbaijan, neither of which is a littoral country. In other places, the document connects the Black Sea to Central Asia via the South Caucasus, reinforcing a transit corridor narrative. At the same time, the strategy places enormous emphasis on maritime security, seabed infrastructure, and naval cooperation, focusing on the sea itself more than the wider political geography. This raises a basic but crucial question: Is the Black Sea region defined by geography, connectivity, or EU priorities? Without a clear and consistent definition, the strategy risks becoming another exercise in regional "imagination"—where borders are elastic and inclusion is conditional on political utility.
Still, an integration paradigm?
Fourth, across its pages, the strategy is heavily tilted toward the EU integration paradigm. Many of the proposed initiatives—deepening trade ties, enhancing regulatory alignment, fostering democratic resilience, improving infrastructure—are framed explicitly in terms of approximation to EU norms and values. This is not surprising. But it raises concerns about whether the EU is fully attuned to the diversity of political systems, strategic orientations, and regional interests in the Black Sea space. The focus is less on mutuality and more on conditionality. Partner countries are often positioned as “on the path to” or “should align with” EU priorities, rather than as co-creators of a shared regional vision. This normative asymmetry could limit the appeal and traction of the strategy among states that do not seek, or are ambivalent about, EU membership.
Disconnected Pillars?
Fifth, one of the most noticeable features of the strategy is how densely packed it is. Each section—security, economy, environment—comes with its own “flagship” initiatives and detailed sub-actions. But while each component is well-written and policy-rich in its own right, they often feel disconnected from one another. For example, the emphasis on environmental protection and climate resilience is hardly linked to the security dimension, even though both could interact meaningfully in contexts like maritime safety or disaster preparedness. Likewise, cultural diplomacy and digital cooperation are listed in broad terms, with little indication of how they reinforce strategic goals like conflict resolution or regional stability. In essence, the strategy lacks a strong internal logic that weaves these pieces into a unified whole. The reader is left to infer the connections when, in fact, those connections should have been explicitly articulated.
Security First, Vision Later?
Sixth, what ultimately emerges from the document is a vision that is ambitious but blurry. The EU wants a "secure, interconnected and prosperous" Black Sea region, but what does that concretely entail? Does it mean a regional bloc integrated into the EU single market? A buffer zone of stabilised partners? A corridor to Central Asia? Or a hybrid of all three? The absence of a clearly articulated end-state leaves the strategy open to multiple interpretations, which may suit diplomatic flexibility, but risks undermining policy coherence. A vision, after all, is more than a set of goals. It’s a narrative that aligns means with ends, justifies priorities, and signals intent. Here, the EU’s strategy falls short.
And, capacity?
Seventh, perhaps the most important critique is one of feasibility. The strategy is immensely ambitious. It proposes new infrastructure corridors, enhanced maritime capabilities, cyber defence networks, educational exchanges, climate action plans, energy corridors, cultural diplomacy tools, and more. It mobilises almost every instrument in the EU’s policy toolkit—NDICI, IPA, Horizon, Erasmus+, Global Gateway, Defence Fund, and others. Yet, it offers little in the way of resource estimation, political sequencing, or risk assessment. There is no clear prioritisation of initiatives, no timeline for implementation, and no discussion of potential obstacles, such as internal divisions among EU member states, limited financial flexibility, or pushback from actors like Russia or even Türkiye. In a world marked by overstretched institutions, competing crises, and waning political bandwidth, such a strategy risks remaining more discursive than actionable. If everything is a priority, then nothing is. It falls somewhere between a concrete policy document and a strategic concept.
The EU’s Strategic Approach to the Black Sea region is, in many ways, a document of its time: geopolitically reactive, normatively expansive, and institutionally inclusive. It seeks to fold the Black Sea into the EU’s broader external action framework, emphasising connectivity, resilience, and enlargement. Yet for all its ambition, the strategy reads more like a discursive articulation of the EU’s Russia containment policy in the Black Sea than a cohesive, partner-driven regional plan.