July 10th, 2008 by Adam

With Sunday’s summit in Paris, many are discussing what impact, if any, this weekend’s launch of the Mediterranean Union will have on Euro-Arab relations and Middle East politics as well. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently decided to attend this weekend’s summit at the behest of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. However, “Ankara has been hesitating about whether to embrace the Union for the Mediterranean, an initiative spearheaded by Sarkozy, because of doubts that it may be an attempt to delude the country’s European Union membership prospects.”

Amitai Etzioni at Talking Points Memo sees the new union as an opportunity for Turkey to bolster its leadership in the Middle East and use its position as a functioning democracy to promote reform and regional integration. Etzioni says, “Calling on Turkey to lead the economic and political development of the Middle Eastern community fits well in a new global design.” Furthermore, “…a Middle Eastern community, serving as a democratizing magnet for other states in the region, would well complement such a global architecture.”

Posted in Democracy Promotion, EU, Turkey |