Sustainable development at the Black Sea

🌊 SUST-BLACK Project Summary: Sustainable Development at the Black Sea

The SUST-BLACK project (Sustainable development at the Black Sea) was a targeted effort to create a common, basin-wide strategy to ensure a healthy, productive, and resilient Black Sea. This was crucial because, despite recovery efforts following a major ecological crisis in the late 1980s–1990s, the sea faced a high risk of regression due to uncontrolled development, old practices, and the supplementary pressure of climate change.

🎯 Overall Objectives and Context

The project’s central goal was to finalise and launch the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda for the Black Sea (SRIA).

• Context: The Black Sea is the world’s largest land-locked sea, unique for its anoxic layer below 200 meters. Its importance is both ecological and geopolitical, bordering the EU and sitting at the boundary between Europe and Asia.
• Need: Following earlier stakeholder meetings and the Burgas Vision Paper (2018), there was an urgent need for a coordinated, basin-wide Strategic Agenda to manage the sea’s problems.
• Key Event: The project was built around the “Conference for Sustainable Development at the Black Sea” held during the Romanian Presidency of the EU Council (May 2019) to effectively present the SRIA.

💡 Main Results and Endorsement

The main objectives were fully fulfilled, culminating in the successful launch and high-level endorsement of the SRIA.

1. Finalisation and Launch of the SRIA

• The project team prepared and finalised the SRIA and the resulting Conference document, the Bucharest Declaration.
• The SUST-BLACK Conference took place on May 8-9, 2019, in Bucharest, involving significant personalities in marine sciences and stakeholders from various European programs.

2. Political and International Endorsement

The SRIA quickly achieved high-level political backing:

• EU Council: The SRIA was presented to and endorsed by the EU ministers of research at the COMPET Council meeting in Bucharest (April 4, 2019).
• Black Sea Governments: The SRIA was integrally included in the wider Maritime Agenda for the Black Sea and subsequently endorsed by the ministers of the six riparian countries and the Republic of Moldova (along with the EC and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organisation) at the Ministerial Meeting on May 21, 2019.
• International Dissemination: The SRIA was also presented at major European and international events, such as the EUROCEAN Conference in Paris (June 2019).

🚀 Progress Beyond State-of-the-Art

The most significant achievement of SUST-BLACK was the creation and official existence of the SRIA itself.

• First Basin-Wide Strategy: The SRIA represents the first-ever basin-wide strategy aimed at the profound understanding of the Black Sea ecosystems and processes to support the sustainable development and implementation of Blue Growth in the region.
• Policy Integration: Romania began sustained efforts to introduce the SRIA into its national strategy for research and innovation for 2021–2027 and in other key national documents (e.g., water management, Marine Spatial Planning).
• Expanded Cooperation: The project opened up basin-wide cooperation with other initiatives supporting Blue Growth in other European seas.