The EU's Conflict Resolution Policies in the Black Sea Area

Since the end of the Cold War, the Black Sea countries have undergone significant changes in their domestic, regional and global contexts. These shifts entailed important consequences for the political and economic re-structuring of the region, with an increasingly important role played by the European Union (EU) and NATO in anchoring these countries to Euro-Atlantic institutions. However, conflict resolution has remained one area where EU countries have been reluctant to play a more visible role, neglecting to systematically address the fact that the permanence of the conflicts undermines all efforts of regional stability and development. Considering this mismatch, this paper addresses the EU's conflict-related policies in its Eastern neighbourhood and argues that although the EU perceives itself as a force for regional peace, its neighbourhood policy has also brought short-term dynamics of destabilization, namely, by unsettling Russia's leading security role, and as a result of the EU's unclear political prospects towards the Black Sea.