The European Union brings a balance of power in the Black Sea region

The Black Sea Region is clearly in a transition period, and Romanian policy markers will have to be very careful assessing this situation and stating their position. US ambitions for NATO clearly conflict with French ambitions for the EU. Furthermore, even though most EU NATO members find themselves caught in the middle, the current zero-sum nature of NATO-EU relations seems to portend continuing turmoil on the road ahead, to the detriment of both organizations and of transatlantic relations more generally. The paper analyzes the way in which the European Union changed the national interests of the states of Back Sea Region. The key point of these transformations is set to be the “five-day war” of August 2008.