Trade, International Relations and the Spatial Regime of South East Europe. Visions of the Northern Balkans in the European Danube Commission after 1856

The European Danube Commission (EDC) was one of the first supra-national organizations of the European continent. Founded after the Crimean war 1856, it monitored the navigation on the last segment of the Danube as well as the safe passage of ships into the Black Sea. The Lower Danube was not only heavily affected by a European war, but also continued to be the site of numerous overlapping strategic and economic interests between the Ottoman, Russian, British and Habsburg empires. Thus, the Commission’s main mission was to pacify a region eroded by conflicts. Its task was twofold: on the one hand, it assumed responsibility for equal and fair navigation rules, on the other hand, it supervised construction and consolidation works on the riverbed to ensure a faster traffic. For this purpose, diplomats and hydraulic engineers worked closely together in order to define a new spatial regime for South East Europe. The paper will take up several questions in this context: What visions of national spaces, cross boundary cooperation and regional trade relations were  discussed and circulated in the context of the EDC? How did it negotiate and implement its ruling over particular interests?