The Black Sea Region and EU Policy ─ The Challenge of Divergent Agendas

The Black Sea region rarely hit the media headlines until the outbreak of war in Georgia in 2008, yet its importance as a focus of European Union (EU) external policy making had already been growing for several years. The area is fascinating and diverse, comprising both large and small states, with a mixture of democracies and more authoritarian regimes. Traditionally a central foreign policy concern for Russia and Turkey, since the end of the Cold War, the EU and the US have become increasingly involved in the many dimensions of Black Sea politics. This book brings together a broad range of specialists on the region to analyze the challenge of divergent agendas both within and outside the EU. More specifically it looks at how the EU's enlargement to include states on the Black Sea shore has brought about new external policies including the European Neighbourhood Policy, Black Sea Synergy and the Eastern Partnership, all representing subtly different aims and interests. The various sections in the book also examine regionalization, conflict resolution, security, relationships between the Black Sea's states and last but not least, the vital issue of energy which has begun to dominate the discussion of the region. Designed to further the debate on the future of EU policies for the Black Sea region, this book is an essential resource for researchers, students and others in search of a coherent picture of the inter-relationship of EU initiatives and policies in the region.

Karen Henderson is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Leicester, as well as having been Visiting Professor at the Comenius University, Bratislava and the Central European University, Budapest. She has many book and journal publications to her credit, especially on the subject areas of post communist democratization processes and the domestic politics of Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Her research also includes EU eastern enlargement and the area of freedom, security and justice. Carol Weaver teaches part time at the University of Leicester and previously consulted, lectured and published within the disciplines of Psychology and Computer Science. She is also the editor of a website on European politics.