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The wider Black Sea region is increasingly coming into the spotlight against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine from early 2022. However, aside from the security angle, the region proves to be strategically placed in several connectivity initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Three Seas Initiative (3SI), Global Gateway. In all of them the wider Black Sea region is seen as an opportunity for an enhanced infrastructure connectivity and/or a route for freight transportation. What is more, under the current circumstances, the Black Sea has a potential to compensate for bottlenecks in connectivity arising directly or indirectly from the present situation in countries such as Ukraine but also Russia and Belarus. However, the immediate Black Sea region as well as its wider area remain examined mainly within the scope of one of the above-mentioned connectivity initiatives. As a result, contemporary academic literature elaborates insufficiently on it in view of the variety of ongoing and – to a large extent – overlapping connectivity concepts between Europe and Asia.In order to address these shortages, the authors conduct a comparative overview of the Black Sea region’s current standing and significance for the three main connectivity initiatives. An analytical framework is proposed for assessing the competition vs. compatibility potential of the BRI, 3SI and Global Gateway with regard to the Black Sea region as a prospective tool for outlining future connectivity trends, challenges and opportunities for the countries of the region.
Georgiev et al. (Mon,) studied this question.