Lately, I have been looking more closely into the EU’s Strategic Approach to the Black Sea (adopted in May 2025) and, in particular, at the way it attempts to capture the complexity of the region through a multidimensional approach to security, resilience, connectivity, economic development and preparedness.
In an earlier Geopolitical Notes article, The EU’s Black Sea Strategy: From Situational Awareness to Strategic Foresight, I examined the Strategy from this broader perspective. Its three pillars reflect an important systems-thinking premise: developments across the Black Sea cannot be understood through any single policy or sectoral lens. At the same time, I argued that better situational awareness – however necessary – is not in itself sufficient for longer-term strategic thinking. A region facing rapidly interacting geopolitical, technological, economic, environmental and societal changes also requires the capacity to anticipate how these dynamics may evolve and combine.
I developed this argument further on 23 September in a new Geopolitical Notes analysis, Putting into Long-Term Perspective: The Black Sea Maritime Security Hub. The timing is particularly relevant as discussions on the Hub have moved in 2026 from the initial political proposal towards a more concrete framework for its operationalisation. Rather than looking only at what the Hub is intended to do today, the article asks what it could set in motion over the longer term: how shared situational awareness might translate into capability development; how the Hub may need to adapt as maritime infrastructure and technologies evolve; and whether repeated cooperation around shared vulnerabilities could gradually contribute to a wider Black Sea security architecture.
Both analyses are available on Geopolitical Notes on Substack:
The EU’s Black Sea Strategy: From Situational Awareness to Strategic Foresight
Putting into Long-Term Perspective: The Black Sea Maritime Security Hub