BLACK SEA SYNERGY (Synergia Czarnomorska)

Expansion of the European Union in 2004 made it necessary for the European Communities to develop relations with their new eastern neighbors. This became one of the direct reasons of creating the European Neighbourhood Policy, which was to prevent the emergence of new lines of division in Europe and lead to surrounding the EU with the so-called circle of friends. A proposition for the Black Sea area directed towards promoting stability, peace and security in the region, environment protection as well as infrastructure and the building of bonds between Europe, the Near East and regions of the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea is an initiative known as the Black Sea Synergy, modeled on the Northern (remaining outside the European Neighbourhood Policy) and Mediterranean Dimensions. However, many countries in the region express anxiety that the Synergy is an attempt to substitute EU enlargement policy with cooperation frameworks alternative to membership. Such doubts have been mostly voiced by Turkey because of the German authorship of the Black Sea Synergy, Germany being the strongest opponent of Turkey's membership in the EU. Debate on the status of the Synergy within the European Neighbourhood Policy is an outcome of controversies and competition between initiatives for the development of the Eastern and Southern Dimension of the ENP.