Public Hybrid Event/ The EU Foreign and Security Policy in the Middle East: Constraints and Opportunities

The European Union and Turkey have been attaching utmost importance to the Middle East and since the Arab uprisings, the policies towards the region climbed up on the agenda of both actors. The security concerns emanating from the region have been shaping and will continue to shape the policies in the foreseeable future. The region has also been perceived as a tool to evaluate the EU’s success or failure in foreign and security policies.

In the region, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a matter of concern for European countries for decades, while the civil war erupted in 2011 in Syria has been one of the biggest challenges for the EU not only in terms of foreign and security policies but also internal and external migration policies. Iran, on the other hand posed a different challenge due to its controversial nuclear programme.

Turkey, both as a candidate country of the EU and as a close neighbour to all these crises and conflicts, occupies a strategic position in the region. Turkey’s relations with its neighbours have been a significant topic in the negotiations process of Turkey’s EU membership. Lately, the breakoff between Turkey’s and EU’s policies in the Middle East strained Turkey – EU relations, while the shifts in Turkish foreign policy also posed a challenge in relations with regional states i.e., Syria and Israel.

The panel titled “The EU Foreign and Security Policy in the Middle East: Constraints and Opportunities,’’ organized by The Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) in the context of the EU-funded JOINT project on 16 June 2023, will be analysing the EU’s contested and challenging policies towards Iran, the Israel-Palestine conflict and Syria and will provide an overview of Turkey’s policies in the Middle East.

The event will be live-streamed on EDAM’s YouTube Channel.