Europeanization of turkish subnational administrations

8.4. REASONS FOR SUBNATIONAL MOBILISATION ACROSS THE EU ARENA

Engagement with the process of Europeanization has provided a number of SNAs with unprecedented access to new sources of information, legitimacy, financial gains, and not least, non-material benefits in terms of ideational spheres. From the loose sister city or twinning links to establishing a liaison office in Brussels, SNAs have sought to exploit the EU benefits depending on their organizational capacity, the vision of their leaders and characteristics of their respective regions/cities. Such interactions both with their counterparts from different member states and with the institutional and non-institutional EU channels have not only intensified the process of Europeanization on a subnational level; these communications have also led them to filter down the principles of multi-level governance such as partnership, programming and subsidiarity to their respective regions or cities.

Documenting all sorts of EU activities that have been carried out by each Turkish SNA across the EU arena may be impossible in one single PhD thesis. Yet a number of patterns may be grouped as informational, ideational and material spheres. How SNAs approach these spheres varies. The research found that they are concerned primarily with pragmatic reasons (money, networking, gathering information, learning best practices and so forth) in their engagement with horizontal and vertical channels. This suggests that the Europeanization of SNAs in Turkey appears to be consistent with the expectations of the multi-level governance approach. However, apart from some cases (discussed below), SNAs do not generally use their mobilisation as a means to challenge national governments in terms of state by-passing or to seek political gains at home. In this respect, one may not find clear evidence that undermines the liberal intergovernmentalist approach considering the national governments act as a powerful gatekeeper between subnational and supranational levels (see Chapter 2).

Although some SNAs, such as Izmir and Samsun, because of their organizational capacity, have a more systematic strategy when they mobilize towards the Brussels showcase (see Chapter 9); in some instances subnational mobilisation is more aleatory in the sense that it happens for certain contingencies. For instance, someone in Brussels begins a project but it is afterwards not really followed up. As one free-lance lobbyist in Brussels reported:

‘although many of the local and regional administrations see the EU as an economic matter, almost none of them chose to build a strategy or prepare a concrete project for pursuing their interests in the EU arena. If they see that other SNAs conducted a project in one particular area supported by EU fund programs, they also tried to obtain similar support from the EU institutions despite having no concrete project in that area’ (Interview 59).

This evidently clarifies that some visits to Brussels have remained symbolic rather than strategic and organized. Another example of this is given by a civil servant in Ankara. As he stated: ‘after one RDA visited the ERVET (Emilia-Romagna) in Italy after searching the most appropriate RDAs for their regions. And then what we realized was that a number of RDAs have subsequently visited there, although there was no close similarity between them and ERVET’ (Interview 6). Thus, the repetitive visits to similar places clearly reveal the contagion effect among Turkish SNAs. After a while, however, it has become socially appropriate behaviour; in other words, if you are a good municipality or RDA, you must have a relationship outside or you must conduct relations with your European counterparts.

A number of visits are also conducted in a prestigious manner. In particular, during the proto-Europeanization period when there was a good relationship between the EU institutions and the ruling party, the representatives of SNAs close to the ruling party mobilized in Brussels mainly for their local press to show the extent to which they are aware of European or international issues or to serve political point-scoring games (Interview 10). An example for this was given by an interview participant in Brussels. In his example: ‘many of those local leaders coming from the ruling party side usually made it clear that I went to Brussels to hold a meeting with this institution or I am going to Brussels to do this or do that’ (Interview 60). These are generally symbolic rather than planned, organized and influential visits. Strangely enough, while the visits from those SNAs close to the AKP had the highest level during proto-Europeanization, those SNAs close to the CHP party have increased their visits to Brussels in the Alaturka Europeanization period.

A number of SNAs have engaged with the EU institutions through various different channels. However, not all of them are confined to symbolic or courtesy visits. There has been a recent catalyst underpinning the vertical mobilisation of Turkish SNAs in Brussels deriving from a tug-of-war between the opposition-led municipalities and the national government. This so-called hostility of central government to local level has been heightened by different incidents, such as dismissing the mayor from his office (in the case of Adana), exerting excessive central control on a municipality (in the case of Izmir), and linking the activities of certain municipalities with the separatist Kurdish movement (in the case of Diyarbakir) (see Chapter 9). Many of these accusations were made during the interviews and some of these cases have been investigated under Turkish legal authorities (see Chapter 7). Yet what needs to be emphasized here is that in situations where poor working relationships between the central government and regional/local government exist, the latter may be tempted to bypass the former and develop an independent relationship with the EU institutions (Hooghe & Marks, 2001:87). Consequently, the mediating effect of the quality of intergovernmental relations has a substantial effect on subnational mobilisation towards the Brussels arena. This effect has been triggered by the Europeanization process because of the openness and receptiveness of the multi-level system of the EU governance.

Although the representatives of the SNAs from the opposition party side did not use the term of state bypassing, the motives and attitudes of those SNAs towards the EU institutions may be evaluated within that context. At least part of the reason why some municipalities or groups of municipalities devoted so much effort to the EU was the perception that their interests differed from those of national government in certain areas, and that Ankara was incapable of representing their local interests. Concrete examples to show this can be found in the activities of SODEM and the idea of the creation of the House of Izmir (see Chapter 9). Direct relations with the EU institutions from opposition municipalities gained momentum after the creation of a CHP office in Brussels in 2009 and establishment of SODEM in 2010. Accordingly, a number of social democrat municipalities have been able to show their organized interest in the EU institutions in a more strategic and organized way. As a result, such an institutional form of networking in Brussels enables some SNAs to actively pursue multi-level strategies and engage with the EU multi-level polity.

It is also worth noting that the general belief among interview participants is that interactions with their counterparts and EU institutions are an effective way to support Turkey’s EU membership and reduce prejudice about the country. For the most of the informants, the interaction is a two-way process; not only do SNAs download preferences from the EU level institutions but they also upload their interests or expectations to the supranational level. This in turn may gradually shape the European policy-making process as the bottom-up Europeanization literature suggests (see Chapter 1). Although it is difficult to gauge the extent to which Turkish SNAs are able to shape the Europeanization process, the establishment of good relations on a subnational level may help to represent Turkey’s interest and increase the support for the country’s EU bid. Accordingly, this may shape the process of Europeanization in the long-run in favour of Turkey’s full-membership.