Due to its external position relative to the EU, the foreign policy of Turkey most closely follows that of the post-Brexit United Kingdom. Since the decision by the United Kingdom to leave the European Union, they have reached a negotiation standoff. The tension has manifested itself in the form of the political party UKIP, which led the campaign with a series of populist declarations and sentiments. UKIP benefitted from the perception of an anti-UK bias within the EU, which persisted despite several concessions, such as the rebate on contributions to the EU budget (Zimmerman and Durs 2016, 251). Turkey and the UK both maintain close trade relationships with the EU, although both have struggled to rationalize and preserve it.
The UK and Turkey experienced slow withdrawals from their relations with the EU, culminating in singular acts of defiance which shook their respective relationships to the core. The Turkish government slowly embraced authoritarianism beginning with the faux Ergenekon investigation in 2007 (Jenkins 2009, 9). Not long after, the ruling JDP party continued to slide away from democracy with state-influenced elections and voter intimidation, particularly in the snap elections of 2015. Turkey’s smaller-scale acts of domestic rebellion preceded a decisive split in 2017, when President Erdogan eliminated hopes of joining the EU by destroying the parliamentary system in Turkey and replacing it with a presidential system without checks on his power.
The UK began with small-scale acts of rebellion as well, such as testing the EU’s tolerance for dissent with their opt-outs on banking unions and migration policy (Zimmerman and Durs, 251). In 1992, they successfully rejected the replacement of the pound for the euro (Zimmerman and Durs, 251). These acts of rebellion culminated in the Brexit campaign of 2016, when rising anti-EU sentiment in rural areas handed a victory to the Leave campaign. Between Brexit and the referendum, the new challenge for the UK and Turkey is to negotiate for the survival of their economic relationships with the EU.
In both cases, the perception of unfair EU policies played a role in the decisions to separate from the EU. According to The Brookings Institute, “anti-Western sentiment that has risen in Turkey” due to the “perception that the West is continually carrying out operations against Turkey” damaged popular opinion of the EU. Similarly, the members of the Leave campaign accused the EU of attempting to impose a tax on all financial transactions (Sked, 261). Sked attributed the tax impropriety to the EU’s desire to “undermine the success of the city of London” (Sked, 261). Turkey and the UK confronted the perception of bias with rebelliousness, which amplified over time into full-scale defiance of EU membership and values.
Institutional Perspective:
As the UK has attempted to negotiate with the European Council regarding the terms of its exit, it has encountered a number of internal and external problems. The government of Theresa May, perhaps as a result of its diminished strength following the snap elections of 2017, has failed to reach a compromise. Segments of the far right and far left within the UK claim to desire a hard Brexit. The prospect of no-deal by March 2019 has provoked the UK to begin stockpiling food and supplies. The possibility of no-deal warrants their concern, considering Ottaviano et al. discovered that Brexit would cause anywhere from a 1 to 3% drop in GDP as a minimum, reason enough for 84% of the business community to support UK membership in the EU (Zimmerman and Durs 2016, 257).
For comparison, Turkey regards the EU as an antagonistic but necessary partner for economic relations. Both Ankara and Brussels have struggled to sustain the pretense of membership negotiations, but according to Al Jazeera, the EU foreign ministers have declared the negotiations “a standstill.” The European Commission has met with Ankara in Brussels to discuss the terms of their trading relationship. However, the two sides failed to reach an accord with regards to the state of membership in Turkey’s future.
Turkey stands to lose a large proportion of trade valuation if relations with the EU further plummet; the EU accounted for 36.4% of Turkey’s imports and 47% of its exports in 2017, according to The Independent. Earlier this month, the European Parliament canceled an earmarked payment of 70 million euros in pre-accession funds to Turkey, due to a scathing report from the European Commission. With such strong economic ties, the slide towards authoritarianism has not deterred Turkey’s desire to remain economically close to the EU, despite charging it with acts against the JDP regime. The UK and Turkey have difficult EU relations in common, as both rely upon them economically, yet carry disdain for the perceived slights against their sovereignty. The question remains: Can the UK negotiate a decent trade relationship with the EU in spite of its internal animosities? Similarly, can Turkey uphold its trade relationships in the face of increasing political divide between the ideological expectations of the EU and its ruling JDP party?
Your first section makes a detailed comparison between the foreign policies of Turkey and the UK with regards to the EU. However, you seem to delineate between “smaller-scale acts of rebellion” (mostly resistance to integration in both countries) leading up to a cataclysmic break (Brexit and Erogan’s Presidential constitutional changes) , you could make this parallel clearer in your first section. You could also compare the urban/rural divide in Britain and Turkey or focus more on parallel “perception” of EU meddling.
In you institutional section you describe the negotiating conflict between Britain and the EU on Brexit which is a clear example of disagreement between an EU institution and a member state. However, youcould make clearer the contours of the argument: a “no deal” Brexit and a hard Brexit are not necessarily the same thing. While you compare relationships between both Turkey and Britain and the European Council I think you need to compare the relationship between Turkey and two EU institutions.