Introduction

Since the late 1980s, a belt of new subregional groups has emerged in Europe, stretching from the Barents area in the far north to the Black Sea in the south. The Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC), the Council of Baltic Sea States (CBSS), the Visegrad group, the Central European Free Trade Agreement (CEFTA), the Central European Initiative (CEI) and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) — though diverse in membership and character — are an important, new dimension of Europe’s post-Cold War international relations. Compared to the larger European security organizations — the European Union (EU), the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Western European Union (WEU) and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) — however, these subregional groups have received relatively little attention and are often perceived as weak. They lack the economic power of the EU, the military power of NATO or the normative, standard-setting role of the pan-European OSCE. The diversity of their members, their largely consensus based decision-making and their sometimes limited agendas constrain the areas in which they can act.