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31. Turkey's Soft Power Policy Towards The Balkans: Challenges and Perspectives

Author:
Muhamed ALi
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
The Balkans is considered a vital area in international relations. It has always attracted and is still attracting the interest of global and regional powers and factors on the international stage, including Turkey. Besides the political, economic, and defense aspects, the soft power of Turkish multidimensional diplomacy represents one of the most important segments of the relations between Turkey and the Balkan countries. Turkish government institutions like the Diyanet (Presidency of Religious Affairs), Yunus Emre, Presidency for Turks Abroad and Related Communities (YTB), TIKA, Turkish State Media, Maarif education institutions, and various non-governmental organizations represent some of the most vital segments of the cultural, religious and educational expansion of the Turkish state in the Balkan countries. This paper is mainly based on the following research methods: historical, descriptive, and in-depth analysis. This study aims to answer the main question of this research - Do the above-mentioned soft power policy tools play a vital role in the further development of Turkey-Balkan countries relations? This paper concludes that the Turkish soft power policy in the Balkans faces a series of challenges that affect its expansion's functionality and success.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Europe, Turkey, and Balkans

32. Exchanging Money for Love? A Regional Analysis of EU Cohesion Policy on Euroscepticism

Author:
Michael Bayerlein and Matthias Diermeier
Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW)
Abstract:
In the past, the European Union seems to have been able to tame Euroscepticism through regional 'convergence' funding. After the Eastern enlargement of the Union, however, this relationship needs to be put to the test. Not only have the new member states become the main recipients of EU funding, Eastern Europe has also changed from once being the most integration-friendly region to displaying the most integration-hostile attitudes in the EU. Motivated by this empirical puzzle, we revisit the relationship between structural 'convergence' funding and Euroscepticism and ask where - if at all - is the EU's convergence spending still able to tame Euroscepticism. Most surprisingly, correlation analyses reveal that between 2006 and 2018 larger regional subsidies go along with increasing opposition to EU integration. We can rebut this counterintuitive finding by a Diff-in-Diff approach that reveals an increasing Euroscepticism in Eastern European regions between 2006 and 2014. Nevertheless, also these more advanced models fail to establish a positive relationship between regional funding eligibility and pro-integrationist attitudes. Finally, fuzzy RDD models exploit the funding assignment rule and corroborate that the EU is no longer able to pacify integration-critical regions by their simply increasing 'convergence' funding. Nevertheless, the EU has won support in Eastern Europe where EU investments are perceived (positively). In designing a strategy to win back support for EU integration, Brussels does not need more fiscal capacity but rather has to design 'convergence' funding that is visible as well as clearly attributable to its donor.
Topic:
Economics, Regional Cooperation, Foreign Aid, European Union, and Eurocentrism
Political Geography:
Europe

33. ¿Puede la OSCE (todavía) contribuir a la seguridad europea?

Author:
Fernando Arlettaz
Publication Date:
06-2022
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal on International Security Studies (RESI)
Institution:
International Security Studies Group (GESI) at the University of Granada
Abstract:
La Conferencia sobre la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa (convertida luego en la Organización para la Seguridad y la Cooperación en Europa) nació con el objetivo de constituir un foro de diálogo entre actores con opciones políticas y concepciones de laseguridad radicalmente diferentes. Luego del final de la Guerra Fría, el discurso de la Organización se orientó hacia la promoción de un ideal democrático robusto. Sin embargo, los hechos mostraron los límites del optimismo inicial. El rol efectivo de la Organización siguió vinculado a un concepto tradicional de seguridad como seguridad interestatal, con cierta atención a la dimensión de los derechos humanos, pero también con una alta tolerancia a los regímenes no democráticos que persistían en su seno. Esta geometría variableentre los componentes del concepto de seguridad se relaciona con la naturaleza misma de la Organización: ella nació como forma de garantizar un modus vivendientre Estados con intereses e ideologías enfrentados y mantiene en buena medida este carácter, aunque la oposición no sea hoy entre dos modelos económicos diferentes sino entre Estados con grados variables de democratización.
Topic:
Security, Democratization, Regional Cooperation, and OSCE
Political Geography:
Europe

34. Crisis and Bargaining Over Ukraine: A New US-Russia Security Order?

Publication Date:
01-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
As Russian troops have amassed on Ukraine's border, talks aimed at resolving the standoff between Russia and NATO appear to have collapsed. Poland's Foreign Minister warned that "it seems that the risk of war in the OSCE area is now greater than ever before in the last 30 years." Russia has been seeking a new European security agreement that would include formal binding pledges to limit NATO's expansion and military activities across Eastern Europe. US and NATO officials respond that they will not give up on NATO's principles, especially its "open door" policy towards membership. Ukrainians are bracing for a renewed conflict amidst domestic political turmoil. Are the Russian and Western positions irreconcilable? How did we get to the brink of another conflict? And how would a Russian-Ukrainian war affect Russian and Ukrainian domestic politics? How would it impact Ukrainian identity and foreign policy goals?
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, and Ukraine

35. The Parallels of Russian Bellicosity in the Balkans in the Example of Ukraine

Publication Date:
04-2022
Content Type:
Video
Institution:
The Harriman Institute
Abstract:
Just last month, the Russian Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina issued issued a startling threat to the Bosnian government’s aspirations to join NATO. “Bosnia and Herzegovina have the right to decide whether to be a member of NATO, but Moscow reserves the right to respond to such an opportunity,” he said. Russia warned Bosnia and Herzegovina that it could be the Kremlin's next target following Ukraine. This is not the first time Russia has threatened Bosnia. The parallels to Russia’s threats to Ukraine are unerringly uncanny. Bosnia’s significance to Western powers and to Russia stems from the same fact: The country is located squarely at the intersection of NATO and Russian influence. The West recognizes some of the potential Bosnia could have if it were brought into the NATO bloc, but seems not to understand the ramifications of the country slipping into Kremlin-induced disarray. For its part, Russia is just being consistent: Just as it unsuccessfully attempted to prevent Montenegro and North Macedonia from joining NATO, so too is it trying to halt Bosnian aspirations toward the same goal. Bosnia and threatened Balkan states North Macedonia and Montenegro remain fragile to Russian manipulation of its proxies in all of these countries and in the Balkan neighborhood.
Topic:
Defense Policy, NATO, Regional Cooperation, Military Strategy, and Hegemony
Political Geography:
Russia, Europe, Ukraine, and Bosnia and Herzegovina

36. Developing EU Trade Incentives: A Support Tool for Refugee Self-Reliance and Host Community Resilience in Turkey

Author:
Basak Kale
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
The European Union (EU) is developing innovative mechanisms to investigate the root causes of migration in order to offer better socioeconomic opportunities both to migrants and host communities. These mechanisms and actions require multi-country bilateral and regional assistance tools to support different partner countries. Innovative and out-of-the-box ideas include multiple countries and various stakeholders. They are developed to provide cooperation solutions in different regions to have a wider impact on the causes and implications of migration. Despite these efforts, political, social, economic and environmental causes continue to generate human mobility around and beyond the immediate neighbourhood of the EU. The Arab Spring and the civil war in Syria have been creating human mobility in the EU neighbourhood. The war made approximately 7 million Syrians flee to neighbouring countries. Turkey is hosting around 3.7 million Syrians and another half a million asylum seekers and refugees from other regions (DGMM, 2021; UNHCR, 2021). The presence of Syrians in Turkey, together with other refugees benefitting from international protection, has become protracted. The efforts to create durable solutions in the form of “voluntary return, resettlement or local integration” have not yet successfully provided sustainable solutions. Turkey does not pursue an official state integration policy to integrate asylum seekers, refugees and the Syrians under temporary protection (STP). However, STPs, asylum seekers and refugees are becoming increasingly integrated into their host communities through informal and local integration mechanisms (Kale & Erdoğan, 2019). The delay in the access to formal employment and challenges in receiving formal employment permits aggregate the difficulties in the inclusion of refugees into formal employment schemes. Summer 2015 has shown that when there is a lack of economic and employment opportunities for asylum seekers, refugees and persons under temporary protection the incentive to have onward movement to other countries persists and the possibilities of integration in host communities stay low. It is clear that resilience-building and livelihood support through formal work is essential for vulnerable populations to have dignified living conditions in host countries. The EU-Turkey Statement in 2016 triggered the development of changes in the legal framework of international protection and migration policy. The Statement paved the way for the preparation of regulations on work permits for persons under temporary and international protection (Official Gazette, 2016). Legal developments targeted the acceleration of the economic integration of refugees into the Turkish labour market through formal employment. However, the difficulties in getting formal work permits resulted in only 132,000 issued until 2019. This indicates that approximately 4% of the STP working population has formal employment (UN Turkey, 2020). This percentage more or less matches the International Labor Organization (ILO) estimations (ILO, 2020). As a result, the majority of the refugee population is working informally, underpaid (Balkan & Tümen, 2016), without formal social and health security mechanisms, in unskilled jobs that are not wanted by Turkish citizens (Sunata, 2017). Informal employment has been a key element contributing to the lack of durable solutions and a protracted process. In Turkey, informal employment is widespread even among the host community members. It is estimated that there is about 30% of labour in host community among all sectors working unregistered. Informal employment is higher in sectors such as agriculture but significantly lower in the industrial sector. The COVID- 19 pandemic has also aggravated the increasingly poor state of the Turkish economy (Akay Ertürk, 2020). Previously, there were continuous efforts through FRIT (Facility for Refugees in Turkey) and 3RP (Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan) projects with programmes focusing on improving the employability of refugees in the Turkish labour market as well as support for the entrepreneurship capacities of the refugees in accessing the formal labour market. However, under the current economic conditions these projects are failing to generate a significant long-term impact on employment for refugees (Özçürümez & İçduygu, 2020). These projects provide short-term trainings or restricted employment possibilities while including a very limited number of participants. In addition, the COVID-19 pandemic conditions have shown that these livelihood support arrangements when they are not based on rights-based approaches overtime can transform back into humanitarian aid services (Kale & Yavçan, 2020). Long-term policy planning needs to include other incentive mechanisms that will cover multi-country and multi-region solutions. In the long run, if vulnerable populations in the host societies turn into the most vulnerable requiring humanitarian and emergency aid, the incentive for secondary movements to third countries can be high.
Topic:
International Trade and Finance, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and International Community
Political Geography:
Europe and Turkey

37. Could the EU’s New Agenda for the Mediterranean Turn Climate Change from a “Threat Multiplier” into an “Opportunities Multiplier”?

Author:
Desirée A.L Quagliarotti
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
The Mediterranean countries are char­acterised by evident gaps in terms of demographic growth, socioeconomic conditions and natural resources avail­ability, which undermine the process of Euro-Mediterranean cohesion and cre­ate a situation of structural weakness that makes them extremely vulnerable to destabilising events. In just over a dec­ade, the Mediterranean region has been affected by major changes that, at first glance, do not seem to be related to each other. The wave of pro-democracy pro­tests called the “Arab Spring” that has plagued the regimes of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) since 2010 has shown how climate-driven crop failures in major food exporting countries may contribute to driving up international food prices and to amplifying social and polit­ical destabilisation, especially in food-im­port dependent countries (Werrell & Femia, 2013). The “Arab unhappiness” that spurred the popular uprisings has not faded over the years, giving rise to what has been referred to as the “Arab Spring 2.0”. This new round of turmoil, in which protesters demand a better quality of life, has been exacerbated by 2020s COVID-19 pandemic, clearly demon­strating, once again, the close inter­connection between human well-being and planetary health.[1] In the same time frame, in the Northern Mediterranean Countries (NMCs), the migrant-refugee crisis, characterised by new migration waves triggered by traditional as well as unconventional push factors linked to the effects of climate and environmental changes, is becoming one of the most important and divisive issues in recent European politics, adding a new layer of instability to the already shaky European Union (EU) (Pawel & Roland, 2018).
Topic:
Climate Change, Regional Cooperation, European Union, and Green Transition
Political Geography:
Europe and Mediterranean

38. From a Fragmented Cooperation to an Integrated Approach – The Emergence of the Maghreb and Sahel Region and its Consequences for the European Union

Author:
Erzsébet N. Rózsa and Viktor Marsai
Publication Date:
03-2022
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
IEMed/EuroMeSCo
Abstract:
The history of the European Union (EU)’s foreign and security policy has been characterised by a continuous develop- ment and a process of adaptation to the realities on the ground and the experi- ences gained. This was manifest in the gradual change from bilateral relations to regional/multilateral structures, from trade through three-basket/three-pillar structured relations to the integrated ap- proach as introduced by the 2016 EU Global Strategy, and the institutionalisa- tion thereof. “Internal and external secu- rity are ever more intertwined: our secu- rity at home entails a parallel interest in peace in our neighbouring and surround- ing regions. It implies a broader interest in preventing conflict, promoting human security, addressing the root causes of instability and working towards a safer world” (EEAS, 2016). The present pa- per argues that, in order to be able to halt the increasingly complex threats fac- ing the EU and maintain its global actor status, the EU should introduce further – sectorial and regional – flexibility, in- cluding, among others, definitions of the widening geographical scope underlying its strategic vision. Therefore, this paper first asks how the EU and its member states should recon- sider their regional approach. How can the EU implement the existing frame- works and/or develop a more effective and adaptive strategy towards its south- ern neighbourhood fitting the new reali- ties on the ground better?
Topic:
Diplomacy, Regional Cooperation, and European Union
Political Geography:
Africa, Europe, and Sahel

39. Attracting and retaining talents in the EU What role can the EU play in ensuring a sustainable and competitive ecosystem for labour migration?

Author:
Marcel Muraille
Publication Date:
10-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
When the European Commission unveiled its New Pact on Migration and Asylum in September 2020, one of its most decried shortcomings was the lack of specific initiative to develop legal avenues of arrival in the EU, especially in the area of labour migration. On 27 April 2022, the Commission presented a new package of initiatives which aims at both reducing irregular immigration and addressing labour shortages by simplifying aspects of the legal routes and stays into the EU, and proposed a number of steps to operationalise the Talent Partnerships, a unique framework to stimulate mutually beneficial international mobility and to match labour market demands and skills needs between Member States and third countries. The EU Talent Partnerships will build on previous experiences and lessons learnt from a handful of EU-funded pilot projects on labour mobility that were launched following the adoption of the Joint Valletta Action Plan in 2015. While these pilot projects have offered an opportunity to experiment with different options on how to meet labour market demands in the EU, they have only achieved relative success due to the difficulty of mobilising the private sector and, more generally, the competitiveness of EU labour markets. Despite its fragmented competences on labour migration, the EU still has room to play to increase the attractiveness of its Member States’ labour markets and to facilitate the involvement of the private sector in recruiting candidates internationally. This policy brief seeks to provide insights into the role of the EU to improve private sector engagement and develop a sustainable and competitive ecosystem for future labour mobility schemes.
Topic:
Migration, Regional Cooperation, Labor Issues, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe

40. Europe’s Energy and Resource Challenge The Arctic Is Part of the Solution

Author:
Marie-Anne Coninsx and Karen van Loon
Publication Date:
09-2022
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
EGMONT - The Royal Institute for International Relations
Abstract:
The EU’s increased climate ambitions require unprecedented growth in renewable energy and a diversified supply of critical raw materials. Building long-term partnerships and investing in innovation will be vital to pave the way for a clean and secure energy future. With energy being used as a prominent geopolitical weapon and energy prices soaring, the need for enhanced energy security and reliable resource suppliers is essential. The EU has realized it must reduce its natural resources’ dependence to ensure its prosperity, safeguard its interests, and reinforce its strategic autonomy. Especially the European Arctic region should be taken into account when considering the role it can play as a provider of renewable energy, sustainable development, and a reliable supplier of critical raw materials. Despite the specific challenges and costs associated with its cold and vulnerable climate, the region has certain advantages over parts of the world where political instability or low environmental standards are problematic. With its available resources, expertise, and technological innovations, the Arctic, which is often called an innovative testbed and a high-tech knowledge hub, can be instrumental for the EU to realize its Green Deal objectives, end its dependence on fossil fuels, strengthen its autonomy, and ensure its prosperity.
Topic:
Energy Policy, Regional Cooperation, Natural Resources, and European Union
Political Geography:
Europe and Arctic