Znaczenie Turcji dla bezpieczeństwa Unii Europejskiej w kontekście kryzysu migracyjnego

The purpose of this paper is to verify the hypothesis that bilateral relations with Turkey will be in the near future a fundamental factor for the security of the European Union, especially in the context of the migration crisis that the European Union has been facing since 2014. Although the escalation of influx of migrants and refugees is a serious challenge both for Turkey and the EU, the final destination for hundreds of thousands of people coming from North Africa and Middle East is indeed the European Union, which naturally makes it more interested in stopping the uncontrolled stream of irregular migrants. But it is Turkey who holds the key to solving the problem, as its territory is one the most popular trails to Europe. Turkish authorities being aware of their own significance play a well thought-out diplomatic game focused on strengthening Turkey’s position towards the EU which has until today treated Turkey as an eternal candidate to membership, ready to implement ever far-reaching requirements in return for a hazy vision of future accession. The migration crisis and related risk of deep destabilization of the whole EU seems to have become a factor of change of Turkey’s position from a petitioner to a decision-maker with actual impact on European security. In order to verify this hypothesis the following methods have been applied in the research: examination of documents, institutional-legal analysis and analysis of the decision-making process. Moreover, to ensure that the analysis is comprehensive, both English and Turkish language sources have been examined.