A Game Changer in EU-Turkey Relations: The Opportunities and Pitfalls of Migration Policy

ABSTRACT

The mass migration from Syria has been a major turning point and an important ‘game changer’ in EU-Turkey relations, as it marks a watershed in immigration and asylum between two periods: from 1999 to 2011 and from 2011 to the present. During the first period, the EU was one of the driving forces of change in Turkey’s immigration and asylum policy, along with significant migration movements from the Middle East. Although EU demands were largely implemented due to the country’s changing migration profile, there was also ongoing resistance and reluctance towards the EU, thus a certain degree of conditionality. With the Syrian mass migration in 2011, however, and in particular the so-called ‘European refugee crisis’ in 2015, Turkey started to use migration as a foreign policy tool with which to oppose EU conditionality.

KEYWORDS:

• EU-Turkey relations
• migration and asylum policy
• externalisation
• coercive engineered migration
• Syrian mass migration

Interviews

Interview conducted by N. Ela Gökalp Aras with the EU Representative in Turkey.

15 November 2018, Ankara, Turkey.

Interview conducted by N. Ela Gökalp Aras with a high-level official of a state agency.

12 November 2018. Ankara, Turkey.

Notes

¹ Externalisation is a process by which EU norms, policy instruments, policy programmes, procedures, institutions and administrative agencies are fully or partially adopted by non-EU states in the broader European neighbourhood (Lavenex and  Uçarer 2002; 2004).

² Within the theoretical framework of Europeanisation, two principal approaches apply, namely the “logic of appropriateness” and the “logic of consequences”. This distinction, in turn, draws on sociological institutionalism and rational choice theory (March and Olsen 1989). The “logic of appropriateness” refers to action guided by notions of identity and roles shaped by the institutional context in which actors operate (March and Olsen 1984; Checkel 2001). Accordingly, any policy action that follows such logic is seen “as driven by rules of appropriate or exemplary behaviour, organized into institutions” (March and Olsen 1984, 3).

³ The general framework of EU-Turkey relations (including accession) are embodied in the following documents: the Ankara Agreement (1963) and protocols (the Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005), the Regular Progress Reports (prepared by the European Commission since 1998), the National Programmes for the Adoption of the Acquis (NPAA), accession partnership documents, association council decisions and the Enlargement Strategy Papers (since 1998). Other important documents include the Turkish National Action Plan for the Adoption of the EU acquis in the field of Asylum and Migration. All documents are available in English at http://www.ab.gov.tr/index.php?p=113&l=2

⁴ This Regulation was critical because Turkey helped to draft the Geneva Convention (1951) and was an original signatory. However, Turkey ratified the treaty with a “geographical limitation” by which the country grants refugee status only to people coming from European countries. Turkey could not fully align with EU migration law until it lifted the limitation. Mass migration from the Middle Eastern countries thus fell outside the scope of Turkish migration governance until the Law on Foreigners and International Protection (LFIP) came into force in 2013. With the LFIP, Turkey retained the geographical limitation but provided a parallel procedure for asylum seekers from non-European countries to apply both to Turkish authorities and the UNHCR for protection for the duration of their stay in Turkey awaiting refugee status determination (RSD) and resettlement to a third country.

⁵ Until the LFIP in 2013, matters concerning the entry, stay and exit of foreigners were governed by the Law on Resettlement (1934) and the Law on Residence and Travel of Foreigners in Turkey (No. 5683, adopted in 1950), the Passport Law (No. 5682, adopted in 1950) and the Turkish Citizenship Law. The institutional framework was also highly fragmented across various institutions – the Ministry of the Interior, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, the Ministry of Health. Law enforcement as it pertains to migration was equally fragmented across the Foreigners Department within the General Directorate of Security, the Gendarmerie and the Coast Guard.

⁶ The Council Regulation (EC) No. 539/2001 of 15 March 2001 is the first document that lists the third countries whose nationals must be in possession of visas when crossing the external borders and those whose nationals are exempt from that requirement. However, since then, it has been updated with the following regulations. The last one is Regulation 2018/1806 of the European Parliament and of the Council. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018R1806&from=en

⁷ LFIP (Article 62): Conditional refugees shall be allowed to reside in Turkey temporarily until they are resettled to a third country.

⁸ Since the EUTRA was not applicable to TCNs throughout 2016, the RP between Greece and Turkey (2002) was used as the legal basis for the readmissions in implementation of the Statement (European Commission 2016) until the EUTRA became applicable for TCNs in 2017. It should also be noted that the RP was suspended unilaterally by Turkey as of 6 June 2018 in response to a decision by a Greek court to release eight former Turkish soldiers who had fled the country a day after the 15 July 2016 coup attempt.

⁹ On 15 July 2016, Turkey suffered a coup attempt. The government accused coup leaders of having links to the Gülen  Movement, which has now been officially labelled the Fethullah Gülen Terrorist Organisation (FETO).

¹⁰ The European Council’s declaration of 26 June 2018 states: “Turkey has been moving further away from the European Union and accession negotiations have therefore effectively come to a standstill.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nefise Ela Gökalp Aras

Nefise Ela Gökalp Aras is a Senior Research Fellow and principal investigator of the RESPOND: Multilevel Governance of Mass Migration in Europe and Beyond Project (Horizon 2020 Program, #770564) at the Swedish Research Institute in Istanbul (SRII), Istanbul, Turkey.