Participation of Turkey in European Security and Defence Policy: kingmaker or Trojan horse?

The 1999 Helsinki decision of the European Council to grant Turkey candidate country status, the ‘Berlin plus’ arrangements on EU access to NATO assets, and the 2006 agreement on participation of Turkey in EU crisis management operations seem to have (temporarily) solved the dilemma for Brussels: now the EU can keep channels of communication with Turkey open, gain access to Turkish capabilities, and use effective tools to influence Ankara’s policies. But Turkey has stressed its discontent with its status within CSDP, primarily because it wants to be more fully associated with the EU’s decisions in areas where it has a strategic interest and could play a key role, for instance in the Middle East and the South Caucasus. In an effort also to pressure on Brussels to push Turkey’s pre-accession process forward, Ankara has, on a case-by-case basis, exercised its veto right over the use of NATO’s assets by EU crisis management operations. The further development of CSDP is thus, at least in part, linked to progress on Turkey’s path to EU accession. This working paper explores the peculiarities of the EU-Turkey power equation through the prism of the institutional and procedural frameworks in CSDP and offers ideas based on the Lisbon Treaty to forge a more strategic partnership between the EU and Turkey.nrpages: 27status: publishe