About this Event
“Time is running and we are approaching a watershed moment in our relationship with Turkey.” These words by Josep Borrell – the EU’s Foreign Policy Chief – which came repeatedly during the autumn of 2020, describe at best the discourse on the state of ties between the European Union and Turkey.
Indeed, the relationship has become, particularly since the attempted coup in mid-2016, so venomous on so many aspects that it caused a major question mark, on whether or not the sides have come to an impasse.
On the eve of the European Council meeting on December 10-11, distinguished scholar, a top expert on the European affairs, and commentator with Ahval News, Prof Cengiz Aktar, will offer his “tour d’horizon” on the shattered state of relations. The online talk will be chaired and moderated by Yavuz Baydar, Editor-in-Chief of Ahval News Online.
The event is open to all and to join you must register via the link below
https://zoom.us/meeting/
When: Dec 8, 2020
Time: 18:00 GMT
The event is available only to the registered audience.
After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting.
*The event is 2 hours long. The last 30 minutes will be a Q&A session.
Cengiz Aktar is a professor of political science presently teaching at the University of Athens EKPA. He is a former director at the United Nations specializing in asylum policies.
He is known to be one of the leading advocates of Turkey’s integration into the EU. He was the Chair of European Studies at Bahçeşehir University-Istanbul. In 1999, he initiated a civil initiative for Istanbul’s candidacy for the title of European Capital of Culture. Istanbul successfully held the title in 2010.
He also headed the initiative called “European Movement 2002” which aimed at putting pressure on the lawmaker to speed up political reforms necessary to begin the negotiation phase with the EU.
In December 2008, he developed the idea of an online apology campaign addressed to Armenians and
In addition to EU integration policies, his research focuses on politics of memory regarding ethnic and religious minorities, on the history of political centralism and on international refugee law.
His latest book “Le Malaise Turc” (The Turkish Malaise) was published in November in France.
Yavuz Baydar is the Editor-in-Chief of Ahval, a trilingual, independent online news and podcast site on Turkey.
His opinions articles have appeared in the Guardian, Süddeutsche Zeitung, New York Times, El Pais, Svenska Dagbladet, Yomiuri Shimbun, the Arab Weekly, and Index on Censorship.
Baydar was among the co-founders, in 2013, of the independent media platform P24 to monitor the media sector and the state of journalism in his home country.
In 2014, as a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he completed an extensive research paper on self-censorship, state oppression and threats over journalism in Turkey – in the wake of Gezi Park protests. The extended
Baydar is the author of the book, “Die Hoffnung Stirbt
Turkey’s first news ombudsman,
He studied Informatics, Cybernetics and Journalism at the University of Stockholm. He worked as a reporter and editor with Cumhuriyet daily, Radio Sweden, BBC Turkish, and Yeni Yüzyıl daily throughout the 1980 and 1990’s.