The discursive construction of Turkey’s role for European energy security: a critical geopolitical perspective

FEUTURE PhD Online Paper No 1 (2017)

Turkey’s beneficial geographical location between resource rich countries and energy thirsty Europe makes the country in theory perfectly placed to play an important role for the delivery of fossil fuels as gas and oil. Since the late 1990s, Turkey has been referred to as an ‘energy bridge’, ‘transit country’ or even ‘energy hub’ to Europe by Turkish and European officials. The European Commission identified Turkey as key transit state in its ‘Southern Gas Corridor Strategy’, a strategy used to describe planned infrastructure projects that aim at improving the security and diversity of the EU’s energy supply by bypassing Ukraine and Russia and bringing natural gas from the Caspian region to Europe. At the same time Turkey can significantly benefit from the size of the EU gas market and its technological and regulatory advancement. The 2016 Joint Declaration by the Turkey-EU High Level Energy Dialogue emphasised, “Turkey is a natural energy bridge and an energy hub between energy sources in the Middle Eastern and Caspian Regions and European Union (EU) energy markets. Turkey's development as an energy hub will be to the benefit of both Turkey and the EU” (European Commission 2016b).