Master's Thesis from the year 2007 in the subject Politics - Topic: European Union, grade: 8,0= 1,6, Maastricht University (Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences), language: English, abstract: Even though the accession negotiations between the EU and Turkey are projected to last at least another ten to fifteen years, or in the worst case even twenty years, Turkey could become an important member state for the EU and an asset to its foreign policy . For this to happen, the foreign policies of the EU and Turkey will have to be supplementary, even and especially now in the phase of negotiations. Thus, the relationships between Turkey, on the one hand, and Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, on the other hand, have to be friendly to be an asset for the EU. However, the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) and enlargement, especially with regard to Turkey, are mainly researched separately, because they are two distinctive EU policies. Are the interests and aims of the EU and Turkey in their relations to the countries of the Southern Caucasus compatible and can they lead to synergies?

This report investigates how the European Union can build stronger common programs and projects with Russia, its Eastern partner countries, and Central Asia. The objective is to establish synergies between actions that are presently segmented among these three regions. A particular goal is to induce Russia to become a genuinely cooperative positive-sum game player in the wider European neighborhood, and to abandon its attempts to rebuild the former Soviet Union as its sphere of influence. The authors believe that the current global financial and economic crisis could become the tipping point to set in motion a change of strategic attitudes--resulting in a cascade of cooperative actions of the kinds outlined in the report.

Issues in European Union and U.S. Foreign Policy, edited by MYnevver Cebeci, represents a timely attempt at analyzing EU and US foreign policy over a wide range of issues through a comparative approach. It involves theory-guided empirical research and analyzes several thematic issues within the specific context of selected geographical issue areas. It focuses on_and actually proposes_a broader framework of cooperation and coordination for the EU and the US.

The EU can do little to achieve its policy objectives in its Eastern neighborhood without facing the issue of secessionist conflicts. This paper deals with EU policy towards Georgia and the secessionist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It discusses the reasons for and constraints on EU policies, their effects and perception in the secessionist entities. The paper concludes with recommendations on how the EU can contribute to conflict resolution in Georgia through a greater inclusion of the conflict regions into the European Neighborhood Policy.

Over the last few years, Turkey seems to have embraced the East again. Ankara’s closer relations with Eurasian countries go hand in hand with the global shift eastwards, towards the ever-growing and most dynamic region in the world. It is therefore the result of an increasing differentiation of Turkey’s foreign relations, driven by strategic, economic and energy interests. Stronger ties with Eurasian countries, i.e. Russia and China, are also the litmus test for the ups and downs in relations with Washington and Brussels. While Ankara still retains strong ties with the West, it is laying the groundwork to further widen its interests to the East. This report aims to analyse the multi-faceted aspects of Ankara’s Eurasian shift, highlighting the domestic drivers of Turkey’s “Eurasianism”, the interests at stake, the areas of cooperation and competition, and last but not least the implications for the EU.

This book addresses the potential and limitations of the European Union Neighbourhood Policy in sustaining the expansion of the European security community towards the South Caucasus. The Caucasus’ complex regional security dynamics are a hard test for regional security community building and showcase both the challenges of security provision through liberal reforms and integration and of the interaction between security communities and balance of power. The author begins by conceptualizing security community expansion and then considers the ENP through this perspective, before moving on to individual case studies on Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia. The book will appeal to both scholars and practitioners interested in European security, the European Union external action, and the post-Soviet space.