Turkey and the European Union: Strategic Partners and Competitors

Edited by Péter Balázs

This book resulted from a research project sponsored by the Central European University-Sabanci Universitz (CEU-Sabanci) Joint Academic Initiative. The objective of this initiative has been to foster academic cooperation between the two new and innovative institutions of higher learning by supporting joint projects in areas strategically important for both. European Studies, in particular EU enlargement, constituted one such area, given the strength of the Center for European Enlargement Studies (CENS) at CEU; the Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence in European Studies (SUCEES) and the Istanbul Policy Center (IPC) at Sabanci University. The editors of this volume designated a project that refocuses research on EU-Turkey relations with a view to moving the discussion away from highly charged political debates and repeated iterations of perceptions and identity connected with Turkey's stagnating accession process. This volume speaks at large about issues at the core of the dispute of Turkey's accession to the EU taking a wider angle and locating the subject in foreign policy dimensions. The various chapters combine aspects of recent history, societal creeds and beliefs and overall combersome democratic development in Turkey with more strategic aspects, related to geopolitics, energy resources and maintaining allies and influence in the post-Soviet space and the Balkans.

This publication was sponsored by Hungary's OTP Bank.

Published in 2015 by the Center for EU Enlargement Studies
Distributed by the Central European University Press
ISBN 978-963-89822-1-6