Looking at the geopolitics of the Black Sea from Trabzon

There were 200 students as well as 60 special participants -- comprising both Turkish and foreign diplomats, various academics and researchers -- who attended this conference.

Trabzon is living proof of the existence of a shared identity in the larger Black Sea region. This is an identity that was derailed during the Cold War, but which has made a return -- and is strengthening -- following the collapse of the Soviet Union. This very same shared Black Sea identity was celebrated at the June 26 İstanbul summit of state ministers, the occasion being the 20th anniversary of the Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC). The summit, which took place in the shadows of the events unfolding in Syria, and which was sparsely attended and barely noticed by the press, did show us once more that the BSEC needs to be re-examined as an organization, and perhaps restructured within that framework.

The BSEC was originally formed in 1991, and was an organization composed largely of Balkan countries. What this general outlay created, though, was an unhealthy understructure. Countries that lie on the other side of the Caspian Sea -- in other words, Central Asian countries -- now need to be taken into the BSEC alongside all of the Balkan and Caucasian nations included. If countries that lack Black Sea coastlines -- such as Greece, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Armenia and Azerbaijan -- are all members of the BSEC, then invitations ought also be issued to Central Asian countries dependent on the Black Sea for a variety of reasons. In this way, the BSEC would comprise not only Western (Balkan) but also Eastern (Caucasian and Central Asian) countries. It is simply not possible to think of the Caspian basin as separate from the Black Sea basin.

And there are of course historical, political, economic and geographical ties between these two basins. As for Kazakhstan, which sends its petrol from east to west over the Caspian-Black Sea line, it possesses a land mass on the European continent north of the Caspian that is larger than that of France. For this reason, Central Asian participation in the BSEC ought to begin with Kazakhstan. As for Greece, it needs to rid itself of its obsession with seeing Cyprus as a full member of the BSEC. This obsession winds up causing the BSEC to focus on the wrong points, as well as preventing BSEC’s growth and development. A potential spread into the eastern Mediterranean by the BSEC would see other eastern Mediterranean countries push for BSEC membership, and this in turn would make the organization meaningless.

Despite the fact that the BSEC was formed by Turkey, it was envisioned within a wider Turkey-Greece balance. The BSEC financial center is Thessaloniki, while its think tank is in Athens, and its labor council and center is İstanbul. Later, this dual balance within the BSEC had the Russian Federation added to it. The basic lack of success with the BSEC is connected to efforts to keep its inner circle limited to Turkey, Greece and the Russian Federation. The very carefully thought-out Turkey-Greece balance within BSEC has turned, over time, into a situation that works in favor of Greece. The banding together of Greece and the Russian Federation in the larger Black Sea framework, and the Athens-Moscow stress on the majority Orthodox identities of most BSEC members has also turned over time into a situation which most decidedly does not favor Turkey.

What all of this means is that, as the years passed, the BSEC has transformed into a Greek institution with Russian support. At the same time, Greece long used the advantage of being the only EU member of the BSEC. Despite the fact that BSEC members Romania and Bulgaria are now also EU members, Greece continues to assert that it represents the EU within the BSEC. Though it possesses no Black Sea coastline, Greece has managed to create a Black Sea agenda and strategy for itself. Athens has often underscored Greek culture, history and ethnicity in the Black Sea region through pointed and careful use of words such as “Argonauts” and “Hellenic” in reference to the region. There has been much done to see that study groups and projects within the framework of the BSEC make use of terms such as these.

The structure of the BSEC needs to be re-thought in terms of a model that reflects shared interests in the larger region. Otherwise, the BSEC -- which at this point appears to be nothing than an international organization with a budget fit only to pay the salaries of bureaucrats whose offices look out on the waters from İstinye and Dolmabahçe -- will be useless even to get a creaky old fishing boat to float on the waters of the Black Sea.