A New Formula for Collaboration: Turkey, the EU & North Africa

Institutes:

Sabancı Business School (ARAMA Chair), 
Clingendael Institute

Project Members:

Pınar Akpınar,Sabancı Business School
Oğuz Babüroğlu, Sabancı Business School
Nienke van Heukelingen, Clingendael Institute

Project Duration: Feb 2021 – Nov 2021

Contact:

Pınar Akpınar, email: pinar.akpinar@sabanciuniv.edu
Nienke van Heukelingen, email: nheukelingen@clingendael.org
 

Turkey–European Union relations had been fluctuating in recent years, leading to a relationship that appeared to be driven more by crisis management than to represent an equal partnership. Nonetheless, both blocs remained key partners on various dimensions such as trade, migration cooperation and security. As such, it was a timely endeavour to investigate possible areas of economic, political and social cooperation between Turkey and the European Union. In this context, Africa offered an underexplored area of research to examine the possibilities for such cooperation, as well as to identify points of contention.

Once considered a distant continent by both Turkish and European policymakers, Africa now constituted one of the prime orientations of their respective foreign policies. The continent had an abundance of human and natural resources, the youngest and fastest-growing population in the world, and rich oil and gas resources. On the downside, states also witnessed the proliferation of Muslim extremist groups, and possible threats such as illegal migration and health issues. Moreover, emerging powers such as China, India and Brazil had become increasingly present in Africa, fuelling competition on the continent. These developments had brought Turkey and the European Union into a process of revising their existing policies towards the continent.

This research project examined the ‘Africa strategies’ of Turkey and the EU in order to understand the extent to which North Africa—more specifically Morocco, Egypt and Algeria—could provide a venue for cooperation between the two actors.

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