Each sea basin has its own importance from different perspectives: economic, political, social, environmental and strategic. The Black Sea is not an exception. Even more: due to the very different coastal countries, Black sea has a difficult contradiction complex. Consequently, the Black Sea needs a regional or at least a sub-regional approach. In different sea basins EU is using various initiatives and approaches for gathering the actors and its actions. The aim of these initiatives are identify all aspects of cooperation and existing initiatives and to achieve maximum coherence between strategies of each country, thereby maximizing their effectiveness.
In 2019 EU gave a helping hand in the form of Common maritime agenda for the Black Sea (CMA) which can offer successful answers to some of the specific problems in this basin. The CMA cover all Black sea states: Russia, Bulgaria, Georgia, Moldova, Romania, Turkey and Ukraine.
CMA includes the full range of issues related to Black Sea activities (infrastructure, transport, ecology, tourism, aquaculture, fisheries, digitalization, etc.), except political and security issues. Exception of the policy matters is one of the reasons of mechanism’ success. In addition, the European Commission has decided to separate the scientific component – SRIA.
SRIA should involve all stakeholders in the process of responding to all challenges in the Black Sea Basin through the scientific component.
During the first meeting of CMA contact persons, which took place on 1 October 2019 in Brussels, attended by representatives of DG MARE, member countries, EU member states etc. Also, in this meeting the Black Sea Assistance Mechanism was established with purpose of the implementation of CMA, provides guidance and support to governments, private investors, trade and industrial associations, research institutions and universities and to the general public regarding opportunities to engage in Blue Economy maritime activities in the Black Sea region.
It is obviously that the conflicts in Black Sea region transformed already into frozen and these conflicts are forming scenario for future cooperation or development. Also, it should be mentioned that in addition to the complex political situation in the Black sea there are high volumes of traffic, industrialization, urbanization, overfishing and as a result environmental degradation.
During the Ukrainian national webinar “Blueing the Black Sea” on 11 March the Deputy Minister of Environment and Natural Resources of Ukraine mentioned that the Black sea is the most polluted EU basin. The World Bank’s representative Steven Schonberger mentioned that the severe pollution in the Black Sea has happened only over the last 20 years so this makes it reversible. The World Bank is delighted to see Ukraine emerging as an environmental leader in Europe. But it does require a regional solution and collaboration and cooperation across national boundaries is essential. The Blue growth and blue energy should play a more important role in the forecasts and initiatives of the European Union for all sea basins within its scope, especially the Black Sea. That is why the main cornerstone of CMA is blue economy as an instrument for better future for Black Sea.
In this regards, the blue economy and marine renewable energy are necessary precondition for the establishment of certain projects in the area, as well as others related to them.
Ukraine joint this instrument in early 2019 but till the summer of 2020 Ukrainian steps were non-systematic. Only in the end of 2020 Ukraine defined the nationals’ coordinators (Ministry of foreign affairs of Ukraine and Ministry of education and science of Ukraine), formed national team and the Ukrainian national hub under Black Sea Assistance Mechanism started its activity.For the first step Ukrainian stakeholders need to raise awareness on the opportunities presented by the blue economy in the Black Sea region for the upcoming EU funding possibilities for Ukraine to support their engagement in the CMA implementation at national level and regional level. That is why the first Ukrainian national event Financial Instruments of Implementation Support of CMA and SRIA in Ukraine took place in online format on 3 March 2021.
The event objectives were:
- to give a full picture of tools and assistance available in Ukraine for an effective implementation of the Common Maritime Agenda and its R&I Pillar (SRIA) for a healthy and sustainable blue economy.
- to share issue and best practices on EU funding calls.
- to provide practical guidance to the various stakeholders in the blue economy for Ukraine (Authorities, Universities, SMEs, CSOs, etc): what’s in it for them, which are the specific requirements to be eligible and what they have to gain from future financing streams.
Talking about the EU financial instruments within CMA instrument we can figure out eight:
- Neighbour development and international cooperation instrument (target on special priorities of cooperation during 2021-2027.
- Interreg next Black sea program 2021- 2027.
- Horizon Europe.
- Interregional innovation investment.
- LIFE Program.
- European Maritime and Fisheries Fund.
- ERASMUS +.
- TAIEX (Technical Assistance Information Exchange).
Some of these programs are not new for Ukrainian stakeholders, but common window for Black sea related projects is in any case a big advantage.
Separately need to be described the Blueing the Black Sea (BBSEA) project. This is a regional initiative to tackle marine pollution and climate change to catalyze Blue Economy investments in the Black Sea region. The first stage aimed on defining priority investments in pollution prevention, reduction, and control in the Black Sea and the architecture and modalities of the BBSEA project. During the second stage implementation procedure will start. In September 2021 will be announced the calls of proposals according to the defined priorities.
Actually, the CMA provides a single source that summarizes possibilities for blue development for such sectors as marine industries, aquaculture; offshore wind energy; floating offshore wind energy; tidal and wave energy; marine biotechnology, seabed mining; tourism and recreation etc. The target of Blue Economy is to develop some new marine industries and new the political agenda. This EU instrument have been established with the aim to bring together industry, finance, academia and public authorities to identify solutions and make investment more attractive.
Also, under the Horizon 2020 program in this year starts the new project “DOORS: Developing an Optimal and Open Research Support system to unlock the potential for blue growth in the Black Sea’.
DOORS will bring the four pillars of the SRIA into reality, turning the challenges into opportunities for a highly valued Black Sea. It will harmonise research and provide the infrastructure to better understand the Black Sea, particular ecosystem characteristics, develop the framework to support Blue Growth and early development of start-ups, and provide evidence to inform policy and behavioural change. To reach its ambitious objectives, the project team will work closely with stakeholders from the start to develop an open research system and establish a framework to support continuous stakeholder dialogue. DOORS will implement three Work Programmes: a System of Systems to harmonise approaches and provide an accessible data repository, a Blue Growth Accelerator to support enterprise, and Knowledge Transfer and Training to share best practice and build capacity.
Finally, the implementation of CMA and SRIA as an integrative tool to improve maritime governance could be noted positively, stressing the relation between marine activity in Black sea and Blue Growth. Weaknesses CMA for Ukraine is in a lack of private risk funding for innovative maritime technologies, which is still hampering maritime innovation to get to the market in one hand and from another hand in lack of state support.
*Ukraine National Hub with the support of the Black Sea Assistance Mechanism Central Team
References:
- Black Sea Virtual Knowledge Hub
- About Black Sea Assistance Mechanism
