Dr. Akkan SUVER*

The Black Sea Economic Cooperation is 15 years old !

The Black Sea Economic Cooperation, launched with the signing of a foundation protocol in 1992 in İstanbul, today includes parliamentarians, business councils, a bank, an economical data center and a partner NGO.

The Marmara Group Foundation, which is presided by me, was accepted as a partner in the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Parliamentary Assembly in December 2006 with its NGO identity.

The Black Sea Economic Cooperation, which is now a stable reality rather than a dream, an idea or a project, is the strongest concrete evidence of the belief and cooperation of the common future of our region.

As the Marmara Group Foundation, particularly, with the ideal of Black Sea to become a peace, stability and common prosperity basin, with the ideal of making our people, our countries closer with the principle of cooperation, solidarity and common fate and with the ideal of forming a mechanism in our region which will be precedent to all the world, we are aiming at conveying this case from one country to the other.

The greatest goal of the Marmara Group Foundation is to form a Black Sea basin, where not only the goods and capitals but also the ideas of people can roam freely with no barriers.

If most of the countries of The Black Sea Economic Cooperation attempt are look at the future with a brand new vision and hope leaving their common past to history, we take it as a common fate perspective.

For the Black Sea is the meeting point of continents and seas, the region that the ways connecting Europe, Mediterranean, Cauasia, Middle Asia and Middle East intersect. There is also the fact that the human is the focal point of the region.

Our aim at this point as Marmara Group Foundation is taking the vision of removing the barriers in front of the people’s creativities and enterpreneurships and transforming the relationships between the countries in the region into a multiliteral cooperation which is based on market economy relationships

We believe that it is possible for this vision to be formed in a long lasting and dinamic structure, only if civil initiative exists. For peace and stability can only be permanent when people come together with cooperation and solidarity and do common work for common goals.

The qualified human resource, infrustructure of industry and energy of the region, will make the member countries candidates for the fastest growing countries with the most powerful economies.

Today, globalisation is a fact. Another fact is the rapid transformation of the world into one single economy with the universalization of the law. The existence and value of the contribution of mechanisms like The Black Sea Economic Cooperation, is indisputable.

To transfer this existence and value from one nation to the other, as well as it has been from one state to the other since now, will supply a brand new complementary and unifying element to this philosophy.

On the other side, the EU, reaching it’s 50th year of foundation, and the preparations of EU and The Black Sea Economic Cooperation for integration are complementary for each other.

Because we take it as an element that creates economical, commercial and intellectual potential for both these two regional cooperation organizations and third party countries.

From this point of view, as the Marmara Group Foundation we are taking Black Sea as an independent center of ideas to work on for the region to become a prosperous peace and stability basin, which is purified from tensions, and as a common living place of development and democracy for people.

We believe that we have the necessary political and intellectual will for such major cooperation model to be appropriated for our nation and for encouraging the creative energies of our people.

This is a historical opportunity. The involvement of civil society in this organisation is another evidence of contemporaneity and stability. The Black Sea Economic Cooperation will be another guarantee of our bright future with the addition of civil initiative to money and politics.

* President of Marmara Group Foundation İstanbul - Turkey