The challenges faced by Turkey as it received an unprecedented number of refugees as a foreign policy tool to have access to the EU Membership. As such Turkey is urged to be a candidate country for the European Union and on its path of democratization so it has widely accepted a massive number of refugees and open borders for a massive influx of Syrian refugees. The Turkish–EU cooperation started as a human tragedy of refugees erupted hence a partnership between Turkey and the EU was a must to overcome a mutual threat.
This article argues that the relationship between the EU and Turkey was developed at the outset of the Syrian refugee crisis.
On one hand despite the fast increase in the number of Syrian refugees in Turkey in the aftermath of the Syrian civil war, however, the politicization of the refugee crisis took place sometime later. Hence the politicization wasn’t a consequence of the increase in number but unlike that, it took place corresponding to the mass influx of asylum seekers and migrants towards the European Union during 2015. The issue of politicization.is explained in the relation between the EU and Turkey during the two periods of ‘responsibility-sharing. As such these two periods are divided, the first period from May 2015 till March 2016 in which asylum seekers, Syrian ones, and other different origins moved from Turkey to the EU, and this was followed by negotiation and signing of a statement between both parties.
The Second period is from March 2017 till September 2017 in which the bond between the EU and Turkey was loosed and renegotiations concerning the join of Turkey to the Union and its inclusion in the Custom’s Union took place. The study suggests that the climax of the politicization strategy was reached from December 2015 till March 2016. As such during this period negotiations were very active to the extent that a statement was signed by both parties the EU and Turkey during March 2016. On the other hand, the consensus among public opinion and political parties revealed an unequal share of responsibility between the EU and Turkey concerning the refugee crisis. Hence a criticizing discourse erupted by opposition parties and human rights activists regarding how the AKP government negotiated with the Union.(1)
In addition to that, the Turkish parliamentary deliberations resulted in mistrust towards the EU on one hand. It has also resulted in revealing the reason behind the security narrative of refugees which is adopted in exchange for visa liberalization and the rising worries concerning the probability of Turkey turning to a ‘dump site’ of refugees.(2) To conclude, this article argued that the relationship between the EU and Turkey was developed at the outset of the Syrian refugee crisis. While referring to the fact that the politicization wasn’t a consequence of the increase in number but unlike that, it took place corresponding to the mass influx of asylum seekers in the EU during 2015. The article divided the issue of politicization by Turkey into two periods. Finally, the article referred to the consequences of the Turkish parliamentary deliberations.
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