Turkey and the EU: waning foreign policy alignment in a changing international context

ABSTRACT

The current relationship between the European Union (EU) and Turkey is dragged outside the standard EU accession framework and is increasingly shaped by Turkey’s positions and actions regarding a set of regional and global foreign policy issues. For the EU to carry forward Turkey’s long-stalled accession negotiations, Turkey is expected to show progress on multiple fronts, including a satisfactory level of policy alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). This article provides an in-depth analysis of Turkey’s poor alignment with the EU’s CFSP positions since 2014. It looks into regional as well as international issues that occupied the agenda of EU foreign policy and explores the utility-based and normative explanations behind Turkey’s (dis)engagement in policy cooperation.

KEYWORDS:

• European Union
• CFSP
• Turkish foreign policy
• Syria
• Eastern Mediterranean

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/14683857.2024.2359806

Notes

1. European Council. Press Releases and Statements. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/press/press-releases/.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Eda Kuşku-Sönmez

Eda Kuşku-Sönmez holds a PhD in political science from Sabancı University, İstanbul. She is Assoc. Prof. of International Relations at Samsun University in Samsun, Turkey. Her research interests are European Union, Turkey-European Union Relations, Comparative Politics, and Turkish Foreign Policy. She previously published articles in Caucasian Review of International Affairs (2008 and 2010), and Southeast European and Black Sea Studies (2014), and Turkish Studies (2019). With Çiğdem Üstün, she coedited the book titled Turkey’s Changing Transatlantic Relations published by Lexington Books, (2021).