A Strategy Long Overdue: The EU’s New Vision for the Black Sea

On 28 May 2025, the EU revealed a much needed Black Sea strategy, finally signalling a long-overdue recognition of the region’s critical geopolitical importance and an urgency to have a long-term strategy on countering Russian aggression. In her remarks, Vice-President of the European Commission Kaja Kallas acknowledged that ‘the security of the Black Sea is vital also to European security’.

While much about the implementation of this strategy remains unknown at this stage, it is increasingly evident that the EU is trying to shift from a reactive posture to a more pre-emptive, strategic approach towards the Black Sea region – a space that is likely to remain a central arena of confrontation between Russia and the West. In the absence of the EU’s coherent Black Sea strategy, until the beginning of the 2022 full-scale war in Ukraine, the Kremlin has long pursued a consistent strategy in the region, often effectively advancing its objectives, while largely escaping sustained Western scrutiny.

Black Sea as a Multipolar Space

Despite long standing criticism about the absence of the strategic vision for the region, this is not the first time the EU is developing its approach towards Black Sea. In early 2008, the EU launched its Black Sea Synergy - A New Regional Initiative in Kyiv. The framework included cooperation with littoral states on maritime, energy, transport and governance issues among many other areas. Despite some successes in specific sectors, the strategy failed to address complex security threats in the region. Since then, the region experienced three wars in Georgia and Ukraine, a wide range of hybrid threats and sabotage operations.

Today’s strategic environment in the Black Sea is much more complex than before the Russia-Georgia war in August 2008. While Russia still remains the EU’s most pressing security challenge, it is no longer the only driver of regional dynamics. The Black Sea has evolved into a multipolar arena: Turkey has consolidated its influence, while external actors such as China have economic interests and are investing in critical infrastructure, and the Gulf states, India and Pakistan have established new political and economic footholds in the South Caucasus.

This diversification of partners has given littoral states greater room to manoeuvre, enabling them to hedge their relationships and dilute dependence on any single power – something Russia is already experiencing through its waning influence in the South Caucasus, particularly with Azerbaijan and Armenia. Against this backdrop, the EU’s Black Sea strategy risks appearing less like a forward-looking policy and more like a defensive reaction.

The question is whether Brussels’ strategy can address a true multipolar nature of the region and have a response, not just to the Russian challenge but also the wider political, economic and security currents reshaping the Black Sea. Doing so will require sustained political will – currently reinforced by Russia’s war in Ukraine and the United States’ diminishing role as Europe’s security guarantor – but even more critically, it will demand resources. Without significant investment and the capacity to project economic, security and political influence commensurate with the region’s complexity, the EU will struggle to shape outcomes and risks once again falling into a cycle of reactive, underpowered policies. This poses a danger that more littoral states may be inclined to balance opportunistically between external powers, prioritizing short-term gains over long-term stability. In such an environment, the incentives to hedge, whether through energy deals, infrastructure projects, or security partnerships, could weaken collective regional cohesion and limit the EU’s ability to build durable influence.

EU’s Strategic Blind Spot

Despite the Black Sea emerging as one of the most vulnerable and heavily militarised regions, since 2014, the EU has consistently failed to elaborate a coherent strategic approach to the region. This policy vacuum has created space that Moscow has taken advantage of by reinforcing its military presence and political influence at the EU’s doorstep. The absence of a unified and forward-looking Black Sea strategy has not only undermined the security of the EU’s eastern partners – particularly Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova – but has also weakened the EU’s credibility as a geopolitical player.

The EU’s initial response to Russia’s annexation of Crimea and its military intervention in eastern Ukraine was largely reactive, centred on imposing sanctions, providing economic assistance to Kyiv and issuing strong statements of support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. These measures reflected the EU's reactionary crisis-management approach rather than a comprehensive regional strategy despite the region’s growing strategic significance. This ambiguous standing has not only weakened the EU’s influence but has also allowed external actors as well as Russia, to shape the regional order with little effective counterbalance from Brussels.

Regional policy frameworks such as the Black Sea Synergy (BSS) and the Eastern Partnership (EaP) were originally created as tools to forge greater regional cooperation, foster political reform and deepen economic integration between the EU and its eastern neighbours. Yet, these initiatives failed to address the regional security challenges, in particular when it comes to deterring Russian threats, eventually diminishing the EU’s regional role. The EU had to address hard-power realities that currently define the region through the increased presence of Russian naval forces, hybrid warfare tactics, cyberattacks and the use of coercive economic and political leverages over vulnerable states – most notably Georgia and Moldova. Recalibration of these frameworks to reflect the post-2022 realities would require the integration of security and defence components, stronger coordination with NATO and a more forward-looking political vision for the EU's role in the Black Sea.

EU’s New Black Sea Strategy

With the new proposal, the EU seems to target some of the gaps identified above, yet Brussels will be facing a set of challenges in the implementation phase. The EU’s new strategy is structured around three main components: enhancing security, stability and resilience; fostering sustainable growth and prosperity; and promoting climate change resilience. The implementation of this strategic approach is intended to be in synergy with the enlargement process and the EAP policy.

Naturally, security will remain one of the top priorities and as Kallas has highlighted, the Black Sea strategy envisages the creation of the Black Sea Maritime Security Hub. It would serve as Europe’s early warning system to ensure the protection of the critical infrastructure that constantly faces Russian threats, which also makes the Black Sea a less reliable transit route. The EU envisages that the hub could also monitor the developments in Ukraine in case the peace agreement is achieved. The EU also aims to modernise regional infrastructure – ports, railways and transport corridors – while ramping up efforts to counter hybrid threats, including disinformation and cyberattacks. The recent elections in Georgia, Moldova and Romania once again show the damaging power of Russian-led and pro-Russian disinformation campaigns that directly undermine the EU’s role and their attempts to strengthen euro-scepticism within the respective populations. The EU needs a more proactive and pre-emptive approach to debunk these narratives and confront these malign efforts. So far, the EU is proposing to establish joint response mechanisms, information sharing frameworks and enhancing the capacity of partner states including in the use of new technologies to counter disinformation.

Although ambitious and much needed, the EU plan can be challenged by several factors. First, implementation will require unprecedented political coordination among EU member states and partners, many of whom have divergent security concerns, threat perceptions and interest towards the Black Sea. Moreover, at this point the strategy’s security dimension lacks clarity and a clearer articulation of how it will complement NATO’s role in the region or respond to active Russian coercion.

Most importantly, the successful implementation of the EU’s new Black Sea strategy will depend not only on internal cohesion within the EU, but also on effective alignment with regional stakeholders – both littoral and non-littoral states. It is important that the EU sees not only Black Sea littoral states, but also cooperation with Moldova, Armenia and Azerbaijan as an integral part of its new approach. These countries are also directly affected by the Black Sea security dynamics and play vital roles in regional connectivity and energy transit.

However, achieving strategic alignment across these actors will be far from straightforward. Although most countries in the region view closer partnership with the EU as important, their threat perceptions and foreign policy priorities when it comes to Russia are different. For instance, while Turkey sees Russia as a strategic competitor and a threat within the Black Sea security framework, Ankara also has a transactional and pragmatic relationship with Russia.

The expanding influence of external stakeholders – especially China – adds another layer of complexity. The EU’s new strategy rightly identifies the need to better monitor foreign ownership of critical infrastructure, including ports. In 2024, one of Georgia’s most significant projects – the Anaklia deep-sea port – was awarded to a Chinese consortium, signalling Beijing’s expanding economic footprint in the region. This development was preceded by the elevation of Georgia–China relations to a strategic partnership.

While much remains unknown when it comes to timelines, resources or budgeting behind the new plan, translating this vision into actionable policy will be a key test of the EU’s credibility as a geopolitical actor capable of shaping the security architecture of its most contested and vulnerable frontier.

© RUSI, 2025.

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