European Turkey Relations : Turkey

Since 1950 European Union (EU) was created it has promoted peace, prosperity and values among the member nations and its neighbouring countries. EU’s influential tools, has helped transform many European states into functioning democracies and prosperous countries. EU’s membership has grown from 6 to 28 countries (Enlargement, 2014), satisfying a historic vow to integrate the continent bringing in most states of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) by peaceful ideals.EU has anticipated the enlargement as an extraordinary opportunity to endorse political strength and economic success in Europe. EU’s extension policy is open to any European state that fulfils the EU’s political and financial criteria for membership; still the political process of inclusion of new state requires a unanimous agreement from all the existing 28 member states. Europe is considered to be more flourishing and safer place due to the promotion of democracy, anti-corruption policy and the single market policy.

In its relative dark history Turkey, has come a long way. Overcoming its continuing struggle with its Muslim dominance, to becoming a powerful democratic Muslim state. Seeking full membership into the European Union (EU) to be a first Muslim EU state, and a member of NATO. With the country being part of not only Europe, it also shares geopolitical aspects with Asia and the Middle East, Mediterranean and Balkans. While trying to bring modern values to an elected Islamist government.

With our continuing interest in the Middle East and Russia’s recent action in Crimea, Turkey has become one of the most important allies to the western world. However, their recent actions suggest that turkey is moving away from the west. Now that Turkey is starting to thrive independently, the west is no longer as appealing. Under the leadership of its current Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, it is clear that Turkey is focusing more on its self-interest in the Middle East. Erdogan is a devout Muslim with a fundamentalist past who, now that he is in power, has cemented his role by dismantling the checks and balances of the Turkish political system. With public backing and changing economic condition that favor Turkey, Erdogan has been able to steer Turkey away from its secularist roots and away from western influence.

I have always wondered about the affairs between states and political strategies the states apply to determine their relations. My interest and curiosity in affairs between states and their designated policies to determine their affairs became more obvious when I was at high school. I started to read about political history, specifically; political history of Europe between 16th – 20th centuries. Events like Thirty Years War, Treaty of Westphalia, French Revolution, First and Second World Wars in Europe, which shaped today’s international system in many ways, developed my interest in International Politics and their effects to the societies. Throughout high school years, In addition to my readings on European political history; my country, Turkey’s foreign policy influenced me to study on it. Turkey’s geostrategic position is unique and worthy to study. By security perspective, economically and politically stable Turkey is vital for the stability of the Middle East and Caucasus. Also important for the security of EU. By economic point of view, developing energy projects such as; TANAP (Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project), which will be passing through Turkey and existing energy projects such as; Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is passing through Turkey, are important for energy distribution to Europe. Furthermore, Turkey can play an important role to enhance commercial and economic

The possible accession of Turkey to the European Union is at the center of the controversy surrounding the EU 's enlargement. Given the disparate histories of the EU member states, Turkey 's own complex and battle-scarred history, and nationalistic considerations, the question of whether Turkey will ultimately be accepted as an EU member, with full rights and privileges, is one to which there are few clear-cut answers.

EU enlargement is the most ambitious project that is often presented as the historic mission of reunification of the European continent (Kok, 2003). Since the foundation of European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, its membership has grown from 6 to 28 countries that together cover much of the continent, with the aim to bring prosperity, peace and freedom among the union members . On 1 January 2014, the population of the EU28 was estimated at 507.4 million, which accounts for over 7% of the world’s population (World Population Status, 2014). The European Union has long view the enlargement process as an extraordinary chance of promoting political stability and economic prosperity within the region (Archick, 2014). Past enlargement has brought several benefits to the region, such as transforming EU into a more influential global actor with more economic and political power, spread prosperity throughout the region though expanding the single market, enhance the regional securities and etc.(Politics UK, 2011). However, the past enlargement has also brought challenges to the EU both internally and externally; such as weaken its legitimacy, Central and Eastern Europeans migrating to older member states and direct linkage with new neighbors. Thus this assignment would evaluate the impact of past enlargement on the European Union by mainly focusing on the challenges rather than opportunities; as analyzing challenges from the past enlargement could possibly

Turkish political context is in a nutshell that state is everything. Turkish state exhibits a highly-centralized and interventionist characteristic. In parallel to statist tradition institutionalized with the establishment of Turkish Republic, the state has held all legitimacy tools in its hand. It has existed as a separate entity from the society, with separate interests. Regarding their

From the filing of its EU membership application in 1987, Turkey has long attempted to become a member of the European Union. As of 2014, Turkey is still a candidate country for membership and its position doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. This paper will outline the various challenges Turkey faced in the past and its relation to current challenges facing her ascension to membership in the European Union. This will take the form of establishing Turkey’s position relative to other European nations from the end of the Second World War and how Turkey is progressing towards Europeanization. This paper will also discuss Turkey’s security outlook, its completion of the Copenhagen Criteria, the current issues surrounding Cyprus and intra-European rejection of Turkey as a possible EU candidate.

From the filing of its EU membership application in 1987, Turkey has long attempted to become a member of the European Union. As of 2014, Turkey is still a candidate country for membership and its position doesn’t appear to be changing anytime soon. This paper will outline the various challenges Turkey faced in the past and its relation to current challenges facing her ascension to membership in the European Union. This will take the form of establishing Turkey’s position relative to other European nations from the end of the Second World War and how Turkey is progressing vis-à-vis

Instances of the increase of power of the EU’s institutions are diverse. For instance, the EU has rendered the unanimity that member

In short, these inconsistencies give credence to the possibility that potential heresthetic considerations in established member states outweigh the slower economic and political development of Eastern European states. In theory, binding normative ideas and not individual member states influence EU integration; however, in practice upholding essential EU norms, such as human rights, is plagued by double-standards in established and new members. The double-standards arise from shared practices that undermine human rights despite EU’s formal commitment to protect them. These limitations hamper Europeanization and proper norm diffusion, so in practice specific broad organizational objectives of established member states appear to drive the process of EU integration at this time.

Over the last decade, Turkey has improved their efforts to represent themselves as a leading example of an Islamic-democratic state within the middle-eastern territory. In its efforts to promote democracy, a series of conflicts have caused Turkey to become deeply polarized, and backsliding towards an Authoritarian Regime. In my paper i will discuss the specific contributions to the increased amount of conflict within Turkey's borders, and how the Justice and Development Party (AKP) has refocused its powers from the west towards the Muslim Middle East. The analysis will provide a depliction of how Turkey has faced certain challenges, which have altered their democratic national identity, and how its political leader Erdogan has influenced

Building of the European Union (EU) is a political project intended to eradicate returning wars and to fortify autonomous values, prosperity, and constancy on the European continent 1. The plan of European Union come out and developed in the course of history, and Turkey has been an element of this common history and tradition. The Ottoman Empire, modern-day Turkey's governmental ancestor, had its most expanded provinces in the Balkans started in 14th century. For almost five centuries, the Ottoman Empire was a significant player in the region and a component of the Concert of Europe1. Also to its profound historic line, Turkey's relationships with Europe have been revived with current geopolitical growths. Turkey plays a moderating function in the European border as a not religious and autonomous country. A lot of people argue that abiding change in Turkey on its way to EU succession may fortify Turkey's stabilizing function with relationships to its neighbors and in the EU, and therefore add to safety in Europe2. Moreover, Turkey is a regional power and that adds to regional safety in the Middle East, and consequently, in the US. Turkey's succession might as well lessen the cultural segregations in Europe, particularly those pertaining to immigration and the assimilation of Muslims into European societies. The subsequent curriculum will give a wide setting

The sun was barely peeking over the horizon, and I could hear the nearby mosques call out the on the speakers, which signaled the start of morning prayer for nearly 15 million Muslims living in Istanbul. It had been nearly 8 hours since my friend, Basil, and I started wandering around Istanbul’s most popular tourist sites, and it had almost been 6 hours since we had first gotten lost. Walking around all night trying to figure out how we had gotten into such a sticky situation, we exited the famous Blue Mosque and made our way back to the metro station, hoping now that they would be open so that we could finally catch a ride back to our dorms. That night I had experienced a lifestyle like nothing before, one that I would never forget.

For as long as the European Union has been a supranational institution, there have been several crises which has caused the EU trouble. The current issues of the EU are ones which have forced the EU to bend, but not completely break. The issues of Brexit and the current human rights violations in Hungary are two current issues which have caused alarm across all 28 member states. Lithuania, a relatively small Baltic nation, has been a stable member state since its inception to the EU in 2004. Lithuania, along with the other Baltic States, has consistently treated to make the EU an institution of equality and fairness for all member states. However, Brexit and the current Hungarian issues have put additional strain on Lithuania and the