Between a curse and a blessing: Germany's role in shaping the EU-Turkish relations with the Eastern Mediterranean as a litmus test

Official URL: https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09644008.2025.2521089

Germany substantially influenced Türkiye’s relations with the European Union as a preponderant player in European politics. With accession negotiations de facto frozen, the EU refers to Türkiye as a key partner, but also as a challenger in the Eastern Mediterranean. The EU’s highly complex internal dynamics with member states’ diverging interests complicate Türkiye’s relations with the EU. The Eastern Mediterranean has become a hotspot for regional rivalry with ongoing power struggles between Türkiye, Greece, and Cyprus over sovereign rights. While the EU has sided with its member states in this conflict, entangling the multiple knots that involve these three Mediterranean countries–two of whom are EU members–and preserving peace in this region has become a top priority for Germany. This paper’s focus on the Eastern Mediterranean knot is based on the theoretical insights from liberal intergovernmentalism, with Germany’s relative power shaping European foreign policy towards Türkiye. The paper utilises legal, official documents from Germany and the EU to perform a co-occurrence network analysis, to combine empirical analysis with this theoretical background. The aim is to investigate the extent to which Germany, as an autonomous actor, influenced European foreign policy towards Türkiye and the Eastern Mediterranean.