Turkey’s EU Cross Border Cooperation Experiences: From Western Borders to Eastern Borders
Turkey’s EU Cross Border Cooperation Experiences: From Western Borders to Eastern Borders

Summary/Abstract: Turkey’s pre-EU membership process has presented a number of regional development opportunities through Cross Border Cooperation (CBC) Programmes, which have involved a great variety of actors from local government to civil society organisations in border regions. Although there is a high level of scepticism about the future of Turkey’s EU membership aspirations in certain political circles both in Turkey and EU, in the event of such a membership the EU’s borders will be expanded to the Caucasus and Middle East regions. In other words, with its long land borders to Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran, Iraq and Syria; Turkey would also likely to become the key EU country for the bloc’s European Neighbourhood and Partnership Instrument (ENPI) programmes. Therefore the paper undertakes a comparative analysis of Turkey’s relations with the Balkans, Caucasus and the Middle East and what these relations mean from the perspective of CBC programmes.

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