Even though the six Western Balkan countries (WB6) have close political ties with the EU, their alignment with the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has in­creasingly come into focus since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine. The EU should take a...

Der Westbalkan solle "so schnell wie möglich" in die EU, erklärte der Bundeskanzler auf dem Gipfel des Berliner Prozesses Anfang November 2022. Der Berliner Prozess besteht aus einer Reihe von Veranstaltungen und Treffen, die seit 2014 jährlich zwi­schen einzelnen EU-Mitgliedstaaten und den...

Over the new year, tensions between Serbia and Kosovo rose once again. This occurred in the context of negotiations on a new European Union (EU) proposal - also known as the Franco-German or "European" proposal aimed at formalising relations between Belgrade and Pristina, much along the lines of...

Since 25 June 2024, the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) have been engaging in accession negotiations with Ukraine and Moldova. The EU wants and needs to provide a strategic response to new geopolitical challenges, especially the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. At the same...

Although electricity grids shape and define both political and economic spaces, the geopolitical significance of electricity remains underestimated. In political communities and beyond, such grids establish new channels for projecting geopolitical influence and new spheres of influence. In the...

Turkey's neo-Eurasianist ideologues describe themselves as “Kemalist Eurasianists”. They argue that “Eurasianism calls for a cultural, military, political and commercial alliance with Turkey’s eastern neighbors, notably Russia, Iran, the Turkic countries of Central Asia, and even...

The AKP leadership's diaspora policy has created tensions between Turkey and European countries. Turkey's gradual slide into authoritarianism, Islam's steady expansion into public life and the increasing divergence between the foreign and security policies of Turkey and the EU have deepened the...

The Ukraine crisis poses two particularly uneasy questions for Turkey: How to uphold a power balance in the Black Sea? And how to manage its relations between Russia, Ukraine and the West? So far, Ankara’s policy towards Moscow consists of both deterrence and dialogue. In regards deterrence,...