Policy Paper 72

The EU and Turkey in the Southern Neighbourhood: a new opening?

Adam Balcer, Programme Director, The EU and the new global contract, demosEUROPA —
Currently, the EU is facing two key challenges: internally, the euro crisis, and externally, the risk of a step back for the Arab Spring. Failure or success in dealing with these will determine the EU’s position on the global stage in the very near future. It is profoundly in Europe’s long-term interest, both economic and strategic, to see the Arab Spring succeed. In this ambit, cooperation with Turkey is of key importance for the EU. Its significance derives from Turkey’s rising leverage in the Arab world based on economic soft power, geopolitical clout and unprecedented popularity among Arab societies. The creation of the EU-Turkey strategic partnership would be considerably easier if EU Member States relaunched the Turkish accession process. A more positive stance of a new president of France on the Turkish accession process provides the EU with a window of opportunity to reinvigorate it in 2013.

| 15/02/2013

This Policy Paper is a contribution of Adam Balcer (demosEUROPA) to the project Think Global – Act European (TGAE). Thinking strategically about the EU’s external action directed by Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute (report available in March 2013, dir. Elvire Fabry, Senior Research Fellow, Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute).

Currently, the EU is facing two key challenges: internally, the euro crisis, and externally, the risk of a step back for the Arab Spring. Failure or success in dealing with these will determine the EU’s position on the global stage in the very near future. It is profoundly in Europe’s long-term interest, both economic and strategic, to see the Arab Spring succeed. In this ambit, cooperation with Turkey is of key importance for the EU. Its significance derives from Turkey’s rising leverage in the Arab world based on economic soft power, geopolitical clout and unprecedented popularity among Arab societies. The creation of the EU-Turkey strategic partnership would be considerably easier if EU Member States relaunched the Turkish accession process. A more positive stance of a new president of France on the Turkish accession process provides the EU with a window of opportunity to reinvigorate it in 2013.
Before the publication of the final report presenting the key recommendations of the 16 think tanks involved in the project, 5 series of policy papers address the following key challenges: EU neighbourhood, CSDP, strategic resources, migration and economic policy.

This Policy Paper is part of the series entitled
“How to make out of its neighbourhood an opportunity for the EU itself?” which
includes contributions by Michele Comelli (IAI), Christophe Hillion(SIEPS), Haizam Amirah Fernández (Elcano Royal Institute), Timo Behr (Notre Europe – Jacques Delors Institute), Lucia Najšlová (Europeum), Vera Rihácková (Europeum), Olga Shumylo-Tapiola (Carnegie Europe).
Go to the other contributions of the neighbourhood series >>

The project is led with the support of the    

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