Creative Commons

The Black Sea region is a dynamic and complex area in which many national and international actors have key interests, including Russia and the US. The European Union stretches to t he sea’s western coast where it meets former Soviet territory as well as EU candidate Turkey. Regional tensions include those over NATO enlargement , access to the Black Sea, democratization, spheres of interest and the conflict zones of Abkhazia, South Oss etia, Chechnya, Nagorno - Karabakh and Transnistria. In addition, the region’s close proximity to the Caspian basin offers the prospect of alternative energy resources and routes to western states . The Black Sea Region is one of the main factors in the make - up of security and stability in Europe and Asia. In addition to the numerous other issues in the region, ethnic conflicts, ongoing state building processes, the presence of vast natural resources, and strategic transport and energy corridors mean that the region is an extremely important and sensitive area. T he Black Sea region has always played a specific role in the foreign policy of Ukraine . Security in the Wider Black Sea region is one of the core elements of European security, and Ukraine, as one of t he major actors in this region, had a potential to unite efforts of different states and international organizations to enhance cooperation in this region. The Ukraine crisis appears to be a potential turning point in Euro - Atlanti c security that could be c ategorized as an active conflict though between Russia and Ukraine. Having come as a surprise to many, some senior Western officials and politicians have talked of a changed European security landscape, and that the crisis both creates new security realiti es for the twenty first century and demands a significant response from NATO. At the same time, however, the crisis is the crystallisation of a number of wider and longer - term problems that have been increasingly visible for some time, most notably the int ensifying sense of strategic dissonance between Russia and the West. That poses questions . Is regional integration ineffective in dealing with the conflicts of identity or separatism? Or is ther e something special about the conflicts themselves or the envi ronment they are developing in? How can these conflicts affect the economic, external or defence policy of the countries involved in this battle of interests in the area? Concerning NATO a nd the EU the question is : will joining both or either of these orga nizations helps solve the “frozen ” or active conflicts ? These are some of the research questions that I am going to tackle during this paper