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ForMin Aurescu: Black Sea - part of arc of instability often fuelled by opponents of Romania's European path
The Black Sea is part of an "arc of instability" that is "often fuelled" by opponents of a European and Euro-Atlantic path, Romania's Foreign Minister Bogdan Aurescu said on Monday.
"If we look today at the eastern flank of NATO, which in its southern part includes the Black Sea region, the geopolitical and geoeconomic interconnection with the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, the South Caucasus, all of that makes the Black Sea part of an arc of instability that after all concerns and must concern to the utmost degree both NATO and the European Union. That arc of instability is often fuelled, instrumentalised by opponents of Romania's European and Euro-Atlantic path, which also creates difficulties for our partners in the region, our close partners who are trying to achieve a better, more prosperous and more European future through efforts that are often less known to the general public," said the head of the Romanian diplomacy.
He participated, at the headquarters of the Romanian Academy, in the launch of "The Geopolitical Black Sea Encyclopaedia," edited in Romania and printed by the Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
Aurescu said the book will bring "better understanding of the Black Sea region, because the developments in this region have always been a priority for Romania's actions, and the Black Sea theme remains by nature a defining, timeless dimension of Romania's strategic profile"
"From Minsk to Damascus, we can see a number of persistent challenges to the stability and security of the affected regions. There is a political crisis in Belarus, frozen and re-ignited conflicts, depending on the context, often with the same self-proclaimed saviours, with goals that are not at in line with what we want, sharpening differences in the Eastern Mediterranean, all of which have implications for the Black Sea," he said.
He added that "democratic stability in the region, the fundamental rights of the citizens, the territorial integrity of the states, their security, are all threatened by approaches that violate basic rules and principles."
"In the year that marks the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, we cannot but see how at this point of intersection of various geopolitical plates, but also against a background complicated by the current pandemic crisis, the risks arising from undermining international law, a global rule-based order, principled and effective multilateralism, sometimes by design, are increasing."
In his turn, British ambassador to Romania Andrew Noble spoke about the importance of understanding this region.
He said the traditional distinction between domestic and external problems is becoming increasingly irrelevant as misinformation is attacking our rules, as witnessed in the case of the coronavirus crisis. Several actors in the Black Sea region, he added, are using a range of tools and have shown that they are open to confrontation on our soil and also abroad. The Salisbury and Navalny cases are important examples of that, and works like this encyclopaedia will help us better understand and respond to such complex challenges. At the same time, he mentioned closeness between the UK and Romania in terms of the analysis of these situations.
Director of the Institute of Political Science and International Affairs of the Romanian Academy Dan Dungaciu, the editor, said the book is a first of Black Sea geopolitics assessment for the world market.
"It is a good thing that it has been written by researchers from Romania," he said. At the same time, Dungaciu said the region is under-represented in research.
"We also tried to present a perspective from Romania, relatively localised, a perspective that tries to put on the map of Western concerns the way in which Romania sees the Black Sea at a time when the Black Sea, to be very realistic, is not necessarily a main concern. Unfortunately, the Black Sea is the least written about, the least talked about area, it has the least, so to speak, academic aggregations (...) we have compared it with the Baltic Sea: books, conferences on the Baltic Sea appear annually," said Dungaciu.
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"The Geopolitical Black Sea Encyclopaedia" assesses the region from various political, historiographical, sociological, economic, military, culturological, geographical perspectives, while emphasising the geopolitical developments inside the complicated space.
The book is a compilation of the analyses of 19 authors - researchers of the Ion I. C. Bratianu Institute of Political Science and International Affairs of the Romanian Academy and contributing experts - of the edifying role that the Black Sea has taken up amidst European geopolitics and the climate generating Eastern, Balkan, Eurasian partnerships.
According to Dungaciu, thanks to a generous summary (154 encyclopaedia entries), the book provides fundamental geopolitical information and multilateral perspectives related to the management of political, diplomatic, military, economic efforts of the states in the contact and impact areas of the Black Sea (Russia, the European Union, NATO, the Balkan Peninsula and Turkey) in mitigating the conflict effects specific to the "disruptive lobby" of Eurasia.