Romania as a European Union member in the Black Sea Region

• Autor(a) principal: Parfene, Ionut Alexandru
• Data de Publicação: 2019
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/19232
• topic: Romania; Black Sea Region; European Union; Russia; Roménia; Região do Mar Negro; União Europeia; Rússia; Geopolítica; Relações internacionais; Política externa; Integração europeia

After the Cold War, the Black Sea ‘’Region’’ became a centre of geopolitical competition for various powers such as Russia, the European Union (EU), Turkey, the United States of America (US), and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). With the accession of Romania and Bulgaria to NATO and the EU in 2004 and 2007, respectively, the Black Sea Region (BSR) became a border of these two organizations. The invasion of Georgia and the annexation of Crimea in March 2014, on behalf of Russia, brought new challenges and paradigms for this area, becoming a relevant issue for the academic sphere. Therefore, in this dissertation we analyse the role of one of the actors, Romania, from the perspective of being an EU member state in the region, in a post-Crimea period. We conclude that Romania is still in a developing phase as a member of the ‘western’ institutions, having a limited foreign policy in the BSR and is strongly in favour of a greater presence therein of the EU, NATO, and the US. The latter is its main strategic partner, as an attempt to balance the ''duopoly'' in the region, represented by Russia and Turkey, while also showing an interest for the creation of new regional initiatives such as the Bucharest 9 initiative (B9) and the Three Seas Initiative (3SI). In addition, Romania is involved in a close social, economic, and political relationship with Moldova, and participates in regional projects aimed at the diversification of energy sources.