EU Announces €50 Million to Accelerate Construction of Black Sea Maritime Security Center

en.Wedoany.com Reported - On November 9, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen announced in Bucharest, Romania, that €50 million in dedicated funding will be provided to accelerate the Black Sea Maritime Security Center project jointly developed by Romania and Bulgaria. The two sides will advance project implementation and establish a construction timetable, with plans to build a regional maritime surveillance, information-sharing and risk-warning network through two coordinated centers located at the Port of Constanța in Romania and the Port of Varna in Bulgaria.

The project will consist of two mutually coordinated facilities. The Romanian center will be located at the Port of Constanța, while the Bulgarian center is planned for the Nikola Yonkov Vaptsarov Naval Academy in the Port of Varna. The two centers will integrate existing maritime surveillance capabilities and data resources of the coastal states to form a cross-agency information exchange mechanism serving the management of Black Sea shipping safety.

The security center adopts a civilian-led, cross-agency collaboration model, focusing on commercial vessel navigation monitoring, port security, submarine communications cables, oil pipelines, offshore energy facilities and the protection of international shipping lanes. The system will also undertake tasks including risk warning, cybersecurity and hybrid threat monitoring, environmental safety, and coordination of maritime emergencies.

This funding arrangement follows the EU's publication of its Black Sea regional strategy in May 2025. Romania and Bulgaria subsequently jointly formulated the construction plan for the maritime security center. The strategy implementation report published by the European Commission and the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in July 2026 further clarified the center's civilian coordination positioning and the direction of its connection with the European Maritime Safety Agency's information-sharing network.

In addition to the €50 million dedicated funding for the maritime security center, von der Leyen separately announced on the same day €10 million for Romania to strengthen Black Sea maritime search and rescue capabilities. The two funding allocations serve different purposes: the former supports the joint construction of a regional maritime security network by Romania and Bulgaria, while the latter is for search and rescue operations by Romanian authorities. The EU also offered to immediately provide satellite imagery from the Copernicus Earth observation program to support monitoring of the Black Sea area.