Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

CHAPTER 8 THE MOBILISATION OF TURKISH SUBNATIONAL ADMINISTRATIONS IN THE EU ARENA

8.1. INTRODUCTION

This chapter takes the issue from the internal reorganization of SNAs for dealing with EU matters to their EU-wide activities through horizontal and vertical channels. As well as reflecting on the findings from interviews obtained at three administrative levels (national, subnational and supranational), the chapter continues to report the findings of the survey. The aim of this chapter is two-fold. First, it seeks to analyze whether the Europeanization process provides a horizontal platform for SNAs to learn from their counterparts in the EU. Second, it aims to demonstrate whether the EU institutions are receptive to SNAs’ claims or interests and the channels through which those SNAs can engage with EU politics. With these general objectives in mind, the chapter unfolds in four broad parts. The first part outlines the horizontal activities of SNAs with their opposite numbers in other member or candidate countries; the second part examines the vertical mobilisation through institutional and non-institutional EU channels; the third part analyses the reasons behind their mobilisation across the EU arena, and finally the conclusion.

8.2. TRANSNATIONAL ACTIVITIES THROUGH HORIZONTAL NETWORKS

Transnational activities not only create voluntary mechanisms for SNAs with regard to horizontal Europeanization (see Chapter 1), but they also encourage further steps for vertical interactions of SNAs at the EU level. By engaging with the horizontal networks, SNAs have developed various tools to facilitate the transfer of best practices. The EU is not necessarily involved with horizontal activities, but at times it encourages SNAs to create networks with each other by allowing funds for twinning and networking. Such transnational activities, particularly for the cases of reactive and to some extent passive SNAs, may be considered in the context of the pulling effect of the EU accession process. As argued in the literature for the situations of SNAs from new member states (particularly from CEECs), if there is a lack of a pull or push effect, learning and imitating may become important mechanisms for subnational mobilisation (see Chapter 4). The process of learning or imitation may best take place during transnational activities through horizontal channels.

Attempts to engage with transnational networks have become more prevalent since the Helsinki Summit of 1999. For the majority of interview participants in different cities in Turkey, the fundamental problem lies in the strong central control over the international activities of SNAs. A number of interview participants reported that although the legal constraints are not a big challenge for them to mobilize across the EU arena, at the same time, they think that there are not many facilitating factors or procedures encouraging SNAs to engage with EU politics. In this regard, one may simply attribute that many subnational actors find it challenging to become a path breaker by being involved in such mobilisation across the EU arena. For this reason, reactive and to a lesser extent passive SNAs wait for approval from the central level or other external push factors (i.e. encouragement from international partners or specific EU programmes) regarding their EU activities. Not surprisingly, this situation is highly remarkable for those elected leaders as well as paid officials who have an organic link with the national government. It is mainly because conducting relations particularly in Brussels is not as salient as in the era of proto-Europeanization.

Another issue in this respect is that the procedure for obtaining authorisation for SNAs’ involvement in any international project or joint transnational activity may entail several months¹²⁴. Such an enduring process leads several proactive SNAs often not to request the formal authorisation for their projects or joint activities and thus they breach the law, especially in the case of using international funds (Interview 46). It is notorious that the EU’s calls for project proposals dictate a tight agenda for the development project and usually require partnership with actors from different countries. This means that applying for ministerial authorisation to implement joint projects may practically make them lose the opportunity to catch up with the funding agenda.

Although types of transnational activities are various, they are mainly based on projects funded by the EU and have a limited time span. When the project is due, presumably the majority of SNAs will not sustain a durable relationship with their partners in those specific projects. This hinders the process of learning and brings about discontinuity for the establishment of transnational partnerships. The survey findings demonstrate that half of SNAs have already applied for EU funds with their equivalent partner in the EU. Around 40% of SNAs are planning to apply for the EU funds with partners abroad if they ever have a chance to do so. Almost two-thirds of Metropolitan Municipalities (72%) have joined in EU-funded projects with their foreign counterparts. At the same time, this ratio is very low for regional development agencies but two-thirds of them are planning to partake in EU-led projects in future. Only a small amount of SNAs (5%) did not attempt to apply for joint projects with their partners from the EU countries and they do not think they will do so in future. Overall, Table 8.1 presents the general distribution of responses within the three types of subnational administrations.

Table 8.1 Have you ever applied for an EU-funded project with the equivalent partner in the EU? (%)

Along with the EU-funded projects, there is transnational cooperation and networking of SNAs in varying degrees ranging from personal contacts to sister city agreements with their opposite numbers in the EU. Table 8.2 reveals seven different types of transnational activities for Turkish SNAs.

Table 8.2 What sorts of transnational activities have your organization conducted in the EU arena?¹²⁵ (%)

The prevalent activities among SNAs are reciprocal visits with their counterparts in the EU countries (52%), the sister city agreements (52%) and partnerships (51%). Due to having more economic and human resources, almost all Metropolitan Municipalities (MMs) (93%) have sister cities in the EU members or have established reciprocal visits with their European counterparts. Although their size, economic and human resources are relatively lower than those of MMs, City Municipalities (CMs) also conduct a wide range of international activities in the EU; likewise, the majority of Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) — albeit comparatively recent organizations— are already involved in various different transnational activities. More specifically, for the sister city and partnership agreements, a senior bureaucrat in the Ministry of Interior Affairs expressed that:

‘The applications from local administrations to our ministry regarding sister city or partnership agreements have increased steadily over the last decade. These agreements used to be subject to the decision of the Council of Ministers. Yet, after seeing the increasing demand in those activities, it is now enough to acquire permission from our ministry only’ (Interview 9)¹²⁶.

With the impetus of the EU support for sister city agreements in return for the financial aid, municipalities have been more concerned to create links with their counterparts in the EU countries. For instance, in 2005, the EU-supported programme, called Civil Society Dialogue, was launched, linking Turkish municipalities with their counterpart in the EU (Interviews 11 and 13). Statistically, there was a sharp increase in the sister city agreements, particularly towards the EU-27 countries, after the Helsinki Summit of 1999. Table 8.3 illustrates that the sister city agreements within the EU-27 countries have been multiplied more than twelve times, whilst this ratio remained around six-fold for the rest of the world. The number of sister city agreements within the EU-27 was 39 before the Helsinki Summit, but it has now reached a level of 413.

Table 8.3 Number of Sister City Agreements of Turkish Cities


In comparison with the reciprocal visits and sister city agreements, participation in international fairs (40%) and conferences (25%) is comparatively lower. They are not only important channels for SNAs to engage with their opposite numbers in the EU, but also essential for the learning and socialization process. By participating in these activities, SNAs may become aware of the interregional networks and liaison offices in Brussels. However, it was reported by an interview participant that some of these activities have remained a symbolic courtesy for the elected and paid officials of SNAs (Interview 10). Hence, such transnational activities are far from producing outcomes for further mobilisation efforts. Related to this point, SNAs hardly ever require assistance from the professional consultant companies (9%). Instead, they prefer to conduct their relations through personal and party political links (39%). While such individualistic interest mediation heightens the importance of leadership, it also reinforces the misfit between national and European logic of interest mediation as well as the lack of organized interest formation on subnational levels in Turkey. As argued, this sort of interest formation or mediation reflects the path dependency of Turkish administrative tradition (see Chapter 5).

Another important transnational activity is the cross-regional networks among frontier regions in the EU. There were, however, no cross-regional programmes selected by the survey participants. As one may concede, participation in cross-border regions is confined to the regions that Turkey shares borders with (i.e., Greece and Bulgaria). SNAs cannot implement a wide range of Euro-regions activities owing to the country’s geographic position. Euro-regions are organized forms of cross-border cooperation¹²⁷. They are voluntary associations that bring together municipal and regional bodies of two or more countries to promote cooperation, trust and trans-border development in a number of spheres, namely: economic, social, cultural, spatial planning, the environment and transportation and communication infrastructures (Yoder, 2003:91). This kind of grouping seeks to ensure that their problems as a whole are taken into account by European institutions, and they are explicitly intended to conduct political, economic and cultural lobbying.

The EU has indeed encouraged cross-border relations as in the case of INTERREG programmes. Interviews in the Ministry of Development suggested that: ‘the cross-border programme with Greece was not thriving due to the long-lasting political problems on each side’¹²⁸ (Interview 8). In the current situation, two ongoing Euro-region programmes among Turkey, Greece and Bulgaria (Euroregion Polis-TrakiaKent-RAM Trakia and Euroregion Evros-Marista-Meric) are seen as examples for the Euro-region activities. Both interregional programmes involve mainly exchanging information in the field of education, culture, or economic activity, transport, and more importantly for the applications for European programmes. While the Polis-TrakiaKent-RAM Trakia is more active and a full member to the AEBR, the Evros-Marista-Meric is relatively less active and partially a member of AEBR. For instance, the former organized the AEBR executive meeting, which was held in Istanbul on 17-18 May 2012. In that meeting, the main focus was on territorial cooperation in an extended Europe: the role of local authorities¹²⁹. This meeting advocated the idea that SNAs should become more actively engaged in EU politics, which may be seen as a clear transmission of Europeanized ideas and norms towards some parts of Turkish regions.

In summary, the visible proliferation in transnational activities over the last decade illustrates that the volume of EU work at subnational level has increased. Additionally, even though 14% of SNAs have not been involved in any horizontal activities across the EU arena, the above figures may be interpreted as rising trends towards the foreign activities of SNAs. The horizontal activities are important initial steps for SNAs to become familiar with EU politics and its atmosphere in Brussels. Turkish SNAs are comparatively new and inexperienced in the EU arena and therefore have to understand the formal and informal sides of EU politics. These activities not only allow them to emulate or disseminate what they have gained from elsewhere, but also teach them how to be involved in the EU integration process. Representatives of local and regional administrations may be expected to travel abroad to develop such links and to join in general lobbying activities in Brussels. In the case of Poland and the Czech Republic, as Moore (2008b) points at, equivalent partners in the EU arena persuaded those regions to establish their own offices in Brussels in subsequent years.

Similarly, in many instances, existing twinning links, or sister city agreements may also provide ready-partners in the future. The interview findings evidently suggest that a number of SNAs have gained the experience and confidence to initiate the following steps in terms of joining interregional networks or even creating their own offices owing to their reciprocal visits or partnerships with their opposite numbers in the EU. Frontier regions are usually in a better position to cooperate than others because they have more incentive and legitimacy to do so (Balme & Le Galès, 1997: 164). There are not many frontier cities in Turkey. Only those in the north-western end of the country (such as Edirne, Tekirdağ, Çanakkale, and to a lesser extent Istanbul, Izmir, Bursa and Balıkesir) are in a better position to conduct relations with their immediate neighbouring cities in Bulgaria or in Greece (see Map 8.1). Needless to say, in comparison with the rest of the country, those cities sharing a border with Bulgaria and Greece have higher GDP per capita. For that reason, they became outside of the eligible areas for the EU funds for the IPA. Unless there is a special programme supporting the practices of cross-border cooperation, efforts for border region activities usually derive from bottom-up endeavours. This situation not only highlights the restriction of geography but it is also a clear confirmation of push factors regarding the transnational activities of SNAs.

Map 8.1 The EU Member States and Turkey’s Neighbours



Source: http://www.eubusiness.com/europe

The geographical disadvantage, however, may disappear in the near future with the extension of the EU neighbouring policies through the Black Sea regions. As an interviewee from the CPMR reported:

‘[...] the Commission will get its neighbouring programme up and running for the Balkan and the Black Sea regions, whereby those regions within this area will be ready to utilize this opportunity. As a concrete example, on the neighbourhood side, DG Maritime Affairs, come with a maritime strategy for the Black Sea area for the end of 2012’ (Interview 56).

A number of EU-supported initiatives are targeted at linking SNAs from the EU’s neighbouring countries to each other as well as to EU governance, as in the case of maritime programmes. In one of the most recent meetings (on 22^nd June 2012) in Sinop (a small coastal city situated on Black Sea), the General Assembly of the Balkan and Black Sea Commission of CMPR declared four main areas of activities: more support for the Black Sea Strategy; more activities in the Adriatic; more coherence between macro-regions and neighbourhood programmes; and more regional involvement at EU level¹³⁰. Overall, it can be seen from the above examples, figures, and statistics that SNAs have been taking part in transnational activities intensifying the Europeanization process at the subnational level and disseminating the idea of multi-level governance despite the low credibility of EU membership. Therefore, in the absence of adaptational pressure or top-down impetus, the voluntary mechanism may be a carrier for the principles of Europeanization and MLG in some parts of Turkey. The establishment of transnational links with their opposite numbers in the EU may also constitute an important dimension of vertical mobilisation.