REGIONAL COOPERATION IN THE BLACK SEA AND THE ROLE OF INSTITUTIONS

Abstract

Situated at the crossroads between Europe and Asia, the Black Sea has been a site of contention and confrontation for centuries. In the context of the Cold War, it was the scene of East-West strategic competition. In the post-Cold War era, it has become more complicated and difficult to manage. Throughout the Cold War, the decisive political and military presence of the superpowers provided stability, albeit strained, in the region for forty years. The demise of the Soviet Union, has on the one hand, liberated ancient sources of tension and grievances that the Cold War suppressed and masked, but on the other, allowed for the first time an emergence of truly cooperative environment around the Black Sea