The Commission on the Black Sea is a civil society initiative, jointly developed and launched in January 2009 by the German Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh; the Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation (BST - GMFUS), Bucharest; the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Ankara; and the International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), Athens.

Among members of the Commission on the Black Sea are a former vice prime minister, former ministers, current and former parliamentarians, public intellectuals and scholars from the whole Black Sea region, the European Union and the United States. The Commission’s work has been supported and complemented by several individuals from different countries, who wish to remain anonymous due to their current official affiliations or for personal reasons. The names of those members who are willing to associate publicly are listed below. They all serve on the Commission in a personal capacity.

Members: Former and Current Policy Makers

Erhard Busek: Former Vice Chancellor of Austria; President, EU-Russia Centre, Brussels; Coordinator, Southeast European Cooperative Initiative (SECI), Vienna
Sergiu Celac: Former Foreign Minister of Romania; Senior Adviser, National Centre for Sustainable Development, Bucharest
Daniel Daianu: Former Minister of Finance of Romania; former Member of the European Parliament; Professor of Economics, National School of Political Studies and Public Administration, Bucharest
Gernot Erler: Former Minister of State of the German Federal Foreign Office; Member of the German Bundestag, Berlin; President of the Southeast Europe Association (Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft), Munich
Tassos Giannitsis: Former Foreign Minister of Greece; Chairman, Hellenic Petroleum, Athens
Tedo Japaridze: Former Foreign Minister of Georgia; Alternate Director General, International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), Athens
Suat Kiniklioglu: Member of Parliament, Spokesman of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the Turkish Parliament, AK Party Deputy Chairman of External Affairs, Ankara
Irakli Menagarishvili: Former Foreign Minister of Georgia, Tbilisi
Rasim Musabayov: Former Adviser on Interethnic Relations to the President of Azerbaijan; Vice-President, Centre for Economic and Political Research (FAR-Centre), Baku
Vartan Oskanian: Former Foreign Minister of Armenia; Chairman of the Board, the Civilitas Foundation, Yerevan
Vladimer Papava: Former Minister of Economy of Georgia; Senior Fellow, Georgian Foundation for Strategic and International Studies (GFSIS), Tbilisi
Volker Rühe: Former Minister of Defence of Germany, Hamburg
Özdem Sanberk: Former Ambassador and former Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, Istanbul
Hannes Swoboda: Member of the European Parliament; Member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs; Vice-Chairman, Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats, Brussels
Borys Tarasyuk: Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine; Member of Parliament; Chairman of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on European Integration, Kiev
Yannis Valinakis: Former Deputy Foreign Minister of Greece; Professor of International Relations, University of Athens

Members: Scholars and Practitioners

Franz-Lothar Altmann: Associate Professor for Intercultural Relations, Bucharest State University, Bucharest
Ireneusz Bil: Director, Amicus Europae Foundation of Aleksander Kwaśniewski, Warsaw
Mitat Çelikpala: Deputy Dean, Graduate School of Social Sciences, University of Economics and Technology, Ankara
Johanna Deimel: Deputy Director, Southeast Europe Association (Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft), Munich
Ovidiu Dranga: Ambassador of Romania to Belgium, Brussels
Panayotis Gavras: Head, Policy & Strategy, Black Sea Trade & Development Bank (BSTDB), Thessaloniki
Peter Havlik: Deputy Director, The Vienna Institute for International Economic Studies, Vienna
Jörg Himmelreich: Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington, DC, and Berlin
Alexander Iskandaryan: Director, Caucasus Institute, Yerevan
Tim Judah: Journalist and author; Correspondent of The Economist, London
Georgi Kamov: Project Coordinator, Bulgarian School of Politics; Member of the Executive Board, Economics and International Relations Institute (EIRI), Sofia
Alan Kasaev: Head of the CIS & Baltic Department, Russian State News Agency RIA Novosti; Co-chairman, Association of the Russian Society of Researchers, Moscow
Sergei Konoplyov: Director, Harvard Black Sea Security Program and US-Russia Security Program, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, Cambridge
Andrei Kortunov: President, The New Eurasia Foundation, Moscow
Bruce Lawlor: Director, Center for Technology, Security, and Policy at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg
Ian Lesser: Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Washington, DC.
Andrei Lobatch: Senior Project Manager, The Foundation for Effective Governance, Kiev
Panagiota Manoli: Senior Research Fellow, International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), Athens; Lecturer, University of the Aegean, Rhodes
Ognyan D. Minchev: Executive Director, Institute for Regional and International Studies (IRIS), Sofia
Fabrizio Tassinari: Senior Fellow, Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS), Copenhagen
Yannis Tsantoulis: Research Fellow, International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), Athens
Andrei Zagorski: Leading Researcher and Professor, Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO), Moscow

Steering Committee

Mustafa Aydin: Rector, Kadir Has University, Istanbul; Director, International Policy Research Institute (IPRI) of the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Ankara
Armando García Schmidt: Project Manager, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh
Alina Inayeh: Director, Black Sea Trust for Regional Cooperation, Bucharest
Dimitrios Triantaphyllou: Director General, International Centre for Black Sea Studies (ICBSS), Athens; Assistant Professor of International Relations, University of the Aegean, Rhodes

Members of the Commission on the Black Sea

Members: Former and Current Policy Makers

Members: Scholars and Practitioners

Steering Committee