The European crisis and turkey’s unpredictable role in the Balkans

Abstract

This paper discusses Turkey’s role in the Balkans as part of the broader narrative of European integration. ‘Europeanization’ in the early 2000s was a political platform that was instrumental in allowing Turkey to forge a peace between the country’s established elite and moderate political Islam. In the context of Turkey’s alienation from the project of European integration, the relationship between Europe and Turkey is becoming narrowly transactional and there is no longer a ‘community building’ dynamic. Instead, the region emerges as a canvas of competing influences and mutually exclusive choices between Ankara and Brussels that ultimately contribute to ‘Balkanization’.