In their letter of congratulations to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following Turkey’s June 2018 presidential elections, Donald Tusk, the President of the European Council, and Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the European Commission, highlighted energy as one of the areas of common interest in Turkey-European Union (EU) relations. Three months prior, before flying to Brussels to meet with Tusk and Juncker, Erdogan included energy among the topics for co-operation with the EU (Cumhurbaskani Erdogan 2018). Given Turkey’s long wait for membership since 1959, deteriorating relations between Turkey and the EU in recent years and Turkey’s intensifying relations with Russia, energy plays a significant role in the relations between Turkey and the EU.
The concept of a book1 on Turkey-EU energy relations in the sphere of natural gas began with the EU’s inclusion of Turkey within the framework of the pan-European energy community in the 2006 Green Paper. The term referred to a “common regulatory space around Europe” (European Commission 2006, p. 16) which included all energy producers, consumers and transit states in Europe, Eurasia, the Middle East and the Mediterranean coast. Within this scope, Turkey was also mentioned by name along with Ukraine, Norway, Algeria, Caspian and Mediterranean countries, the EU-Maghreb electricity market and the EU-Mashrek gas market. It was expected that the pan-European energy community would serve as a tool for the EU and all other countries and regions within the Community to achieve energy security. EU terminology defines energy security as the secure, competitive and sustainable supply of energy (European Commission 2006, p. 16). Furthermore, underlying the fact that energy policy is often considered to be a tool in the foreign policies of energy producers and transit countries, the Commission stated in its Energy Union Package dated 2015 that the EU would use all foreign policy instruments to establish strategic energy partnerships with producers and transit countries, including Turkey (European Commission 2015, pp. 2, 6).
These efforts arose from EU concerns on energy security. Energy security in natural gas is important considering the significant share of natural gas in the EU’s energy mix, accounting for 23.8 per cent in 2017, as well as declining indigenous reserves. Overall EU energy import dependency in 2017 was 55.1 per cent, well-below the corresponding figure of 74.3 per cent for gas (European Commission 2019, pp. 22, 24). The EU seeks to achieve energy security through internal and external integration. For the EU, internal integration means the establishment of an internal energy market within the EU, while external integration refers to energy relations and the development of a pan-European energy community with non-EU nations. The development of common trade, transit and environmental rules in order to harmonise and integrate markets “would create a predictable and transparent market to stimulate investment and growth, as well as security of supply, for the EU and its neighbors” (European Commission 2006, p. 16). Thus, concerns on energy security necessitate initiatives, of which Turkey is deemed a part.
Of equal significance is the manner in which Turkey perceives itself in the pan-European energy community in general and its energy security and relations with the EU in the sphere of natural gas in particular. Turkey’s relations with the EU are exceptional considering the history of its decades-long membership process. The Association Agreement signed in 1963 envisaged three phases of the accession: preparation, transitional and final phases. It was foreseen that the final stage would be based on a customs union, which was established in 1996, and would include closer co-ordination of economic policies. Turkey’s candidacy to the EU was declared in 1999 and membership negotiations began in 2005. However, relations have deteriorated since 2008 due to domestic dynamics in Turkey and the EU as well as changes in global politics. Turkey has pursued a foreign policy that seeks greater autonomy and aims to intensify its relations with Russia and other non-Western countries (Oguzlu 2018; Keyman 2017; Unay 2016). Therefore, the positions of Turkish and European actors on energy security deserve attention, bearing in mind the regional and global developments and their repercussions on Turkish foreign policy.
This book thus aims to understand the extent to which the positions of Turkish actors on energy security in the sphere of natural gas constrain and/or enable integration with the EU. This will allow us to better comprehend the position in which the various Turkish actors aim to locate Turkey within the pan-European energy community in the sphere of natural gas, and to what extent this position overlaps with that desired by the EU. To achieve this goal, the book utilises two tools: the English School (ES ) theory of International Relations (IR) and narrative policy analysis. The ES theory of IR, particularly Barry Buzan’s approach, is used to identify the type of integration sought by the actors and the main motivations behind their preferences. In the book, integration does not necessarily mean full membership to the EU; there are different types of integrations, as elaborated on in Chap. 2. Narrative policy analysis, the second tool, is used here to comprehend and compare the positions of EU and Turkish actors. A narrative is “a kind of story told by someone (a “narrator”) with a beginning, middle and end” (Esterberg 2002, p. 182) and thus represents a cognitive map of narrators. Utilisation of these tools provides identification of the main dynamics in the narratives of the EU actors on Turkey’s role in the European energy security and the narratives of the Turkish actors on natural gas pipelines and the liberalisation of the Turkish natural gas market. Turkish actors` narratives on pipelines and the market serve as answers to the EU actors` narratives, as the latter have both geopolitical and market-oriented focuses. An examination of these narratives provides an understanding of the type of integration sought by both EU and Turkish actors in the sphere of natural gas.
The book offers two main contributions to the literature, one theoretical and one empirical. From a theoretical perspective, matters related to energy are often examined within the scope of geopolitics (Klare 2008 among others), economics (Bhattacharyya 2011; Bohi and Toman 1993 among others) or environmental studies (Luft et al. 2011; Brown and Dworkin 2011, among others). The geopolitical literature focuses on pipeline politics, energy shortages and crises through the lens of states, regional blocs, state-bound companies and political leaders. Dependencies and vulnerabilities of suppliers, consumers and transit countries command a central role in this type of literature. In contrast, energy economics focuses on trade, transportation, investments and finance. The economic viability of actors, including not only states and regional blocs but also companies and international financial institutions, is central in the study of energy economics. On the other hand, environmental studies examine energy security from the perspective of sustainability and ecological awareness and criticise the short-term perspectives of foreign policies based on geopolitics and economics (Aalto and Westphal 2007, pp. 3–5; Aalto and Korkmaz-Temel 2012, pp. 79–82).
The book attempts to use a different theoretical framework than the more commonly used geopolitical, environmental or energy economics perspectives. This is owing to the fact that energy is an inherently multi-faceted field and necessitates a broader and more inclusive perspective. It is crucial for industrial production, transportation and heating and is equally significant for the financial sector due to benefits delivered especially by the oil trade, and knowledge production in energy and environment related technology (Belyi 2003, p. 353; Strange 1994, pp. 190–210). Furthermore, energy is directly related to politics owing to its strategic implications for a country. Globalisation further consolidates the complex character of energy by blurring “the once sharp dividing line between foreign, domestic and economic policies” (Umbach 2010, p. 1238). Bearing in mind the multi-faceted character of energy and the impact of globalisation on energy matters, the book applies the ES theory of IR to examine several perspectives at the same time. Indeed, applying the ES to natural resources is not new, given the work of Wubbeke (2011) on natural resources and power. Wubbeke uses the classical ES division of the three traditions of world politics of realism, rationalism and revolutionism to explore possible scenarios for interlinkages between natural gas and power in world politics. However, the dividing line between this book and Wubbeke’s work is the inclusion of Buzan’s (2004) structural interpretation of the ES. Drawing from Buzan’s approach, the book uses the concept of energy security society, which is sketched by Aalto (2009). This concept is used by Aalto and Korkmaz-Temel (2012) to examine European energy security in the wider Eurasian context, and natural gas and the integration process in the EU (Aalto and Korkmaz-Temel 2014). What differentiates this book from earlier works on energy security society is that the book applies the concept of energy security society to Turkey-EU relations in the sphere of natural gas and aims to enhance our understanding of society by utilising the concept of primary institutions, which are elaborated on below, and their interlinkages. Accordingly, the book aims to ascertain the positions of Turkish actors regarding energy security in the sphere of natural gas and examine how their positions contribute to Turkey-EU energy relations, and thereby determine Turkey’s place in the pan-European energy community.
The application of the English School, which includes the theo...