BLACK SEA SECURITY: THE ROMANIAN PERSPECTIVE NATO- EU INTEROPERABILITY, A DIVION OF LABOUR

The current world order is under scrutiny. The 2014 illegal annexation of Crimea and the conflict in Eastern Ukraine have marked a turning point in international affairs: a state actor used force against another sovereign state to gain a territorial victory in order to advance its own geopolitical interests. Since then all major building blocks of the system, mainly the multilateral institutions such as the UN and NATO have been scrutinized and their effectiveness has been questioned. The significance of the individual nation state is gaining again in significance. It is more important than ever to find ways to repair transatlantic discord and to deepen cooperation between NATO and the EU, to recalibrate the strategic bedrock of the alliance and to reposition the transatlantic defence community in a way that facilitates effective defence and deterrence. It is the aim of the article to define and contextualize the Romanian official strategic vision and to outline how it in fact successfully synergies its membership in NATO and in the EU with bilateral partnerships in order to achieve its strategic goals as well as to contribute to the transatlantic cause. The paper starts by introducing the theoretical framework, mainly structural realism. Next, it defines the Romanian strategic view, it contextualizes it and it correlates the strategic priorities to the Black Sea area. The article focuses on EU NATO complementarity through a Romanian strategic lens by focusing on interoperability and crisis readiness in the Black Sea, an area of existential significance to the Romanian national interest. Finally, the conclusions underscore how the Romanian strategic paradigm creates an auspicious medium in order for NATO - EU complementarity and deeper cooperation to occur.