(Photo by German Air Force Master Sgt. Mark Winkler)
German Minister of State Gernot Erler delivers the keynote address at the Black Sea Security Policy conference June 3 in Berlin. The three-day conference, organized by the Marshall Center and the German Federal Foreign Office, brought together about 60 parliamentarians and government officials from the Black Sea area, a region of increasing importance to western Europe since the accession of Bulgaria and Romania to the EU in January 2007.
In a series of panel discussions and working groups, participants examined common security issues, such as energy security, organized crime and illegal immigration, the current state of regional and multilateral security cooperation, and possible strategies for furthering security and stability in the region. Dirk Brengelmann, head of the Defense and Security Division of the Federal Foreign Office, and James Q. Roberts, U.S. deputy director of the Marshall Center, opened the conference.
