The EU, Turkey, and the Arab Spring: Challenges and Opportunities for Regional Integration

Regional integration has long been seen as an effective tool for encouraging regional peace, stability, and prosperity, with the added expectation that economic growth may also facilitate transition to democracy. Working on these same assumptions, the EU and Turkey have developed different approaches to regional integration. The EU sought to develop institutional integration through the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership (EMP), the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP), and the subsequent Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), while Turkey - increasingly becoming a "trading state" - has multiplied and diversified its economic interactions with the Maghreb and Mashreq countries. The Arab Spring has led to a critical assessment of these practices. So what are the challenges and opportunities that regional integration faces in the wake of the Arab Spring?

Paper produced within the framework of the project Turkey, Europe and the World. Publ. in IAI Research Paper 9.
Previous version: "Turkey's Engagement with Its Neighborhood: A 'Synthetic' and Multidimensional Look at Turkey's Foreign Policy Transformation", in Turkish Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2 (September 2012), p. 319-341.