Differentiated Integration, the European Union and Turkey: Chance for the Coordination of Activities in Foreign Policy?

There are many interesting processes taking place in the EU nowadays. One of them is the development of the phenomenon of differentiated integration. The differentiation dynamics points to the inadequacy of conceiving the EU membership in binary (zero - one) terms. In this context, the differentiated integration seems to constitute an opportunity for the stalled enlargement policy, especially when it comes to Turkey – the official candidate to the EU membership since 1999. There is a talk in the academic debate about the possibility of development of the functional model of external differentiated integration in EU-Turkey relations which would mean the involvement of Turkey into the institutional framework and decision-making system of the EU as well as clusters of the EU policies. The aim of the paper, being a result of the research carried out within a project “Differentiated integration, Turkish accession prospects and EU geopolitics” (2016-2018), funded by the Polish National Science Center, is to analyse the possibility of the inclusion of Turkey into the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU. The paper will address the following questions: Is the foreign policy a possible component of the model of external differentiated integration in EU-Turkey relations? What would be the potential areas of developed cooperation within this policy, in the case of implementation of the model? Would it be possible for the EU members and Turkey to coordinate in this context the activities in the common, unstable neighbourhood? The paper will be based on the qualitative approach and in-depth interviews with the experts and practitioners in EU institutions, selected EU countries and Turkey.