Lazar Comanescu

Lazar Comanescu, Secretary General of the Permanent International Secretariat (PERMIS), Organization of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC)

Lazar Comanescu has been a two-term minister of Foreign Affairs, during the period of April - December 2008 and since November, 2015, until January 2017. He was Romania's ambassador to Germany, during the period of 2009-2015 and head of the Romania's Permanent Representation to the EU, from 2001 until 2008.

BSEC was founded in 1992, in the then conditions in the Black Sea area. Thus, on June 25, 1992, in Istanbul, eleven heads of state and government (Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Georgia, Greece, the Republic of Moldova, Romania, the Russian Federation, Turkey and Ukraine) signed the "Summit declaration regarding Black Sea Economic Cooperation" and the "Bosphorus Declaration".

In June, 1998, in Yalta, the "BSEC Charter" was signed, which came into force on the 1st of May 1999 and became the fundamental document of the Organization. Once with adhesion of the Republic of North Macedonia, in November 2020, the number of BSEC members has gone up to thirteen.