The relationship between the European Union and Turkey continues to be a critically important issue for both sides. It has significant economic, political, and social consequences; it powerfully shapes the security perceptions of both sides; it is embedded in history, politics, identity, and culture. Both parties have always aimed for a closer relationship, but what a close relationship entails and where it should eventually end up has been highly contested. In examining this complex and multifaceted relationship, Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci’s book offers both a historical and a thematic analysis of the complex relationship between Turkey and the EU.
The book provides three analytical lenses through which the Turkey-EU relationship can be understood: Turkey as an enlargement country, Turkey as a neighbor, and Turkey as a global actor. Analyzing EU-Turkey relations through these three frameworks is the book’s major contribution to the field of European studies. The book shows that in the last two decades, the enlargement process has mostly occupied a central position in the literature on the EU-Turkey relationship. This focus has become especially evident since the EU’s executive body, the European Council, granted Turkey a date for opening accession negotiations in 2004. However, even before the EU accession negotiations began on October 3, 2005, Turkey’s expectation of swift approval for EU accession had already begun to fade in the face of developments concerning the Republic of Cyprus and the refusal of the proposed EU constitution in France and the Netherlands. As the hopes for a swift accession have begun to fade, Turkey’s role as a neighbor and a global partner has become more accentuated. This tendency was further strengthened by major regional and domestic economic and political crises affecting both the EU and Turkey.
Although the authors do not limit the EU-Turkey relationship to the enlargement process, it is still the first and foremost lens through which the complex relationship between the EU and Turkey is examined. The authors show that the general inclination toward Turkey’s EU membership changes according to whether EU enlargement is viewed as a foreign or a domestic policy question. They argue that several constituencies in Europe tend to view EU enlargement in general as a foreign policy project. Turkey’s membership, then, becomes predominantly about geostrategic and geoeconomic considerations. Moreover, when enlargement is thus viewed as a foreign policy project, Turkey’s membership is generally viewed with favor. However, some other constituencies within the EU tend to view EU enlargement as the domestic affair of an integrated Europe. Within the scope of this latter view, more concerns have been raised regarding Turkey’s membership. Nonetheless, the book does not engage in a systematic discussion explaining the formation of these constituencies vis-à-vis Turkey and shifts in the enlargement debate. Which constituencies view EU enlargement as a foreign policy issue? What explains the shifts in their discourse? Are all those constituencies that view enlargement as a foreign policy project in favor of Turkey’s membership? These questions are left unanswered in the book.
The second lens through which the authors propose to understand the EU-Turkey relationship is the role of Turkey as an EU neighbor. For Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci, enlargement is the dominant but by no means the only area within whose scope Turkey is debated in Europe (p. 50). In fact, regardless of whether or not Turkey ever becomes an EU member state, it will always remain an EU neighbor state. When this neighborhood lens is employed, issues with regard to Turkish foreign policy become especially pivotal. For example, the authors argue that Turkey’s emphasis on strategic autonomy from the West and regional developments such as the uprisings in the Arab world have diminished the opportunities for a closer collaboration between the EU and Turkey as neighbors. But more recently, facing challenges from its neighbors and a crisis of regional security, Turkey has been rediscovering the importance of cooperating with its Western allies, especially the EU.
Finally, the authors also analyze the EU-Turkey relationship in terms of Turkey as a global actor. Through this lens, the book contextualizes the oft-heard argument that Ankara’s emerging foreign policy activism in the Middle East is an indication that Turkey is “drifting away from the Western alliance” (p. 84), and shows that views of Turkey’s foreign policy activism have also become very polarized. While those in favor of Turkey’s accession utilized this activism to strengthen their case, those against Turkey’s inclusion used it as a proof of Turkey’s “non-Europeanness” (p. 90). One wonders, though, how the “Turkey as a neighbor” lens can be systematically differentiated from the “Turkey as a global actor” lens. Is the difference based on a regional/geographical focus, or on how Turkey engages with big power politics? Overall, what differentiates these two lenses from each other needs to better laid out.
After providing these three perspectives or lenses through which the EU-Turkey relationship can be understood, the book moves onto analyzing the components of this relationship: specifically, economics, migration and mobility, security, democracy and human rights, and culture and identity. The authors argue that the weight attributed to these thematic issues changes according to whether Turkey is viewed as an enlargement, a neighboring, or a global country, as well as according to the different European actors involved.
Among these different thematic issues, the authors find that it is the democracy and human rights component that stands out as the one most closely correlated with the overall pace of EU-Turkey relations. Both those in favor and those against Turkey’s accession have first and foremost manifested themselves in this domain. However, when Turkey is viewed as a neighbor or as a global partner, the importance of democracy and human rights clearly diminishes. Migration and mobility is another particularly crucial area of the EU-Turkey relationship. The authors suggest that “migration and mobility have been viewed as a threat to national and broader European cultural homogeneity and hence a prime reason to stall Turkey’s deeper integration” (p. 154). However, conversely, when the lenses of Turkey as a neighbor and Turkey as a global actor are employed, migration/mobility stands out as an area of cooperation. Thus, the relative weight of these components are directly related to which lens the EU employs in its relation with Turkey.
In fact, one recent development especially proves the importance of the choice of framework through which the EU approaches Turkey and her actions. On November 30, 2015, Turkey and the EU struck a deal to stem migrant flows into Greece in return for direct monetary assistance to Turkey from the EU and visa-free travel to Europe for Turkish citizens. The deal was highly criticized, since it was signed during a period when there were growing concerns about democracy in Turkey. But, as Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci argue—and this is in fact one of the major contributions of the book—the EU is primarily concerned about human rights and democracy when Turkey is being seen as an enlargement country, and refrains from such criticisms when Turkey is primarily seen as a global partner. This shift is also related to the changing security environment of both Turkey and the EU, which is another major component of the EU-Turkey relationship.
The authors conclude the book with a series of three possible scenarios for the future of EU-Turkey relations. In the first scenario, the EU accession process represents a liability for the Turkish government, which eventually walks away from its economic, political, and security commitments. In this scenario, “Turkey pursues a multi-vectored foreign policy and does not accord exclusive privileges to any one partner” (p. 200). A second possible scenario posits Turkey and the EU reaching a new framework for cooperation in which the accession process is abandoned but cooperation on security and economic issues are sustained. In this scenario, “a high-level dialogue would be institutionalized and regularized” (p. 201). The last scenario is the most optimistic one, foreseeing the EU exiting its current political/economic crisis and refocusing on the enlargement process by developing a new, differentiated model of integration. The authors, however, discuss neither the likelihood of this last scenario nor the details of this differentiated model.
Overall, the book covers all the major issues and areas and the most important developments within the context of the EU-Turkey relationship. The different lenses that Aydın-Düzgit and Tocci propose for EU-Turkey relations enable a more systematic analysis of the fluctuations in this complex relationship. The authors also choose not to obfuscate the developments they are discussing by employing integration theories, and as a result the book is relatively light on theory but heavy on historical developments. This approach makes the book an accessible text for those wishing to understand the complex and often confusing relationship between the EU and Turkey.
