Evaluation Note / Nilgün Arısan Eralp

Recently, there have been some developments in Turkey-European Union (EU) relations which have been interpreted as revitalization of the relations and the accession process.  After almost a decade, EU heads of states and governments came together with Turkey on November 29, 2015 at a summit meeting; while a negotiation chapter (Chapter 17: Economic and Monetary Union) was opened on December 14, 2015 after a hiatus of two years.

The main driving force of these developments was the decision by the EU, facing the most serious refugee crisis in its history since World War II, to cooperate with Turkey in its efforts to respond to the crisis. As a response to the refugee influx into its borders, the EU has intended to stem the disorderly flow of migrants to Europe and establish a process whereby some legitimate asylum seekers could enter the EU in an orderly manner through resettlement schemes and programs. In order to keep   the refugees in the region, EU would provide assistance to the host countries to provide jobs, education, food and healthcare for them. In a sense EU has been trying to engage in a burden sharing process with third countries. However, given the EU’s approach to allow access only to qualified refugees from now on and given that this approach is adopted only by a limited number of member states, it does not seem bizarre to observe that this effort is perceived by some as the “burden dumping” instead.

In this context, it is only natural that Turkey is considered to be the key country that the EU seeks urgent cooperation with, considering the fact that the country hosts some 2.3 million Syrian “guests” and more than 350,000 have left Turkey to go to Europe this year.