CIDOB Programmes - [09/19/2007]

CIDOB, at the 8th AECPA conference

Eduard Soler and Gemma Pinyol, the coordinators of the CIDOB Foundation's Mediterranean and Migrations Programmes, respectively, took part in a conference in Valencia entitled Politics for a changing world; it was the 8th conference of the Spanish Association for Political Science and Public Administration.

In his presentation, Eduard Soler analysed the impact of Turkey’s possible membership of the EU on the European Security and Defence Policy (ESDP) which is, the researcher said, “one of the main arguments of the defenders of Turkish membership”. Soler explained that other factors such as the internal dynamics of European foreign policy should be examined from an academic perspective, in addition to the processes of the Europeanisation of foreign policy and of the defence of Turkey.

The coordinator of the CIDOB Foundation’s Mediterranean Programme reached the conclusion that with respect to Turkey's possible impact on the ESDP, three different scenarios could arise. The first would consist of the unequivocal upholding of the country’s membership that would strengthen Europeanisation dynamics within Turkey.The second, with the EU's current ambiguous posture, would lead to the partial adaptation of Turkish politics to European priorities and mechanisms. The third would occur after European commitments being unilaterally broken, and could result in Turkish politics becoming more nationalist.In any case, Soler stressed that the determining element would be how reliable EU promises appeared from a Turkish perspective.

Meanwhile, Gemma Pinyol spoke of the need for the countries of the Middle East to reorganise both their migration policies and their mechanisms for dealing with the challenge of refugees.The coordinator of the Migrations Programme at the CIDOB Foundation presented a study on the current state of human movements in the Middle East. The researcher expressed regret that Europe does not seem fully aware that the Middle East is one of the main regions of both origin and reception of refugees and of economic migration flows.

On the issue of refugees, Pinyol emphasised the complexity of cases such as Lebanon, “a reception country for Palestinian refugees and the scenario for internal movements which affected up to 20% of the population in 2006”. The coordinator for Migrations at the CIDOB Foundation also stressed that this region is the site of some of the oldest refugee flows (as in the case of the Palestinians) as well as recent phenomena such as the growing Iraqi diaspora. Pinyol, who also discussed the migration flows currently being experienced by countries in the Persian Gulf, stressed the phenomena of de-Arabisation and femininisation that result from these flows.

Soler and Pinyol presented their addresses at the work group Maghreb-Machreq facing the challenges of the 21st century, which was coordinated by Dr. Raquel Ojeda from the University of Jaén and Dr. Inmaculada Szmolka from the University of Granada. The debates of this work group, which took place from 18 to 20 September, featured participation from academics from various Spanish universities. The main issues covered included those concerning domestic policy and international relations with countries such as Morocco, Mauritania and Turkey.

>> See complete programme of the Magreb-Machreq Work Group