Suchergebnisse

On the occasion of Portugal assuming the rotating presidency of the EU, the article analyzes the European posture toward Turkey. An important question to address is the extent to which Turkey can be considered a European state, particularly within the context of Turkey's desire for a closer association with Europe. The article gives the history of Turkey's long-held desire to join the EU, for which it was campaigning in earnest by 1995. While the economic advantages to Turkey of EU membership are clear, the economic & other advantages for Europe are less so, & not all EU members share the same level of enthusiasm for Turkish admittance. The article concludes by arguing strongly that the EU has a lot of work to do in understanding Turkey better, & that Portugal's assumption of the EU presidency can provide an opportunity in this direction. R. Young

During the last semester, the Portuguese Presidency & relations between the European Union & Turkey were hostage to Sarkozy's election as the President of France & his guerrilla warfare against Turkey's accession. Adapted from the source document.

Both NATO & Turkey are going through considerable changes regarding their place in the world. The former is in the process of defining a New Strategic Concept, whilst undertaking its most demanding military operation to date, in Afghanistan. The latter is redrawing its map of alliances, strategic partnerships & overall foreign policy priorities, in both its neighborhood & among the new international emerging powers. It is under this context of mutual changes that this article proposes to analyze the relationship between NATO & Turkey. Adapted from the source document.

The article argues that the admittance of Turkey to the EU is a question that, above all, raises issues of a geopolitical & strategic nature. Arguably, these are the most important issues the EU has yet faced in its history. The EU must decide if, in the years to come, it wants to define itself as a geopolitical entity or, conversely, as an open space that is willing to be augmented by any and all neighboring states. In the latter eventuality, the EU will have transformed itself into an international organization of almost universal vocation, privileging a sense of vanguard over a hard nucleus. The discussion concludes with the observation that the affirmation of the EU as a geopolitical entity, in accordance with its nomenclature, would reinforce the multilateral geometry of counterbalancing polarities. R. Young

2014 was a year of paradoxes in Turkey. Internally, Recep Tayyip Erdogan's power was reinforced by winning the two elections, local and presidential, with comfortable margins in spite of the antigovernment protests and the corruption scandals involving the government. This was a scenario feared by many who see Erdogan an increasingly authoritarian leader. Externally, Ankara had to face the escalation of the conflicts in Syria and Iraq, and the rise of the Islamic State, in a period in which Turkey seems to lack a coherent foreign policy strategy. Adapted from the source document.

In the European Council that was held in Holland, in the 16th & 17th December 2004, the Heads of Government of the 25 EU member states agreed to set the 3rd of October 2005 as the formal start for the negotiations with the Turkish Republic, in order to consider its possible integration within 10 to 15 years time. Given the importance of the decision taken by the European leaders, this paper aims at analyzing: (i) the multi-faceted Turkish geopolitical reality, namely the geographic, the political, the strategic, the economic, & the identitarian dimensions; (ii) the predictable outcome of Turkish integration with a particular focus on the capacity & limits of the open societies of Europe to incorporate economically & culturally the Turkish population & its diaspora that has hugely different cultural/religious roots. It concludes that it remains unclear whether the EU has political desire, financial means, capacity for cultural integration, as well as the military ambition that is required to abandon the comfortable position of the European island of peace & to deal fully with the intricate strategic identitarian puzzle brought by the integration of the Turkish Republic. Tables. Adapted from the source document.