The European Parliament’s leadership in EU relations with Turkey

By drawing on a generally applicable definition by Burns we understand political leadership as a process in which an actor mobilises proactively to shape the policy process and its outcomes, and we apply it to the EP and EU relations with Turkey in the period 2014-21. This case study has been selected because during the last years, for various reasons, the bilateral relationship EU-Turkey has developed in a crisis context that has required the European Council to intervene in order to steer the direction of this process. Even if the Parliament is traditionally considered as the institution that is not to provide leadership in the EU, and several studies have properly underlined its marginal role in foreign policy, we argue that it has a potential leadership role to play in this domain. Through the qualitative analysis of EP resolutions, of the role played by its President, and of in-depth interviews to members of the EP of the two legislatures with key roles on the Turkish dossiers, this contribution provides a cross-policy comparison of how the Parliament shaped EU decision making on strengthening cooperation on migration with Turkey, on enlargement and democracy promotion, and on CFSP.