Filter through Region-Building in the Mediterranean and the Black Sea regions

Abstract

With the end of the Cold War, regionalism or regionalization has emerged as a prominent feature of international relations. In the European Union’s neighbourhood, one can account for at least two region-building models. The first, the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), was the brainchild of the European Union in an attempt to put into a political, economic, and social framework the geographic space of the Mediterranean Sea. The other, the Organisation of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC), constitutes an attempt at cooperation between littoral states and states belonging to the wider Black Sea region. The key challenge facing both frameworks is their cohesion and the extent to which certain degrees of Europeanization can be incorporated into both processes. The author presents some of the challenges facing both the EMP and the BSEC given the changing context of transatlantic and regional relations.