The EU's security of energy supply and Turkey's accession:Turkey's role as a potential energy hub for the EU

The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the EU's security of energy supply, Turkey's role in this regard and the effect of this relation on the Turkish EU accession process. To this end, the research was carried out by using empirical data from energy statistics, in addition to a broad literature review. The thesis finds that the EU faces considerable challenges in securing its energy supply, most notably due to its high import-dependency on a number of politically unstable regions. Applying theories of energy security, it is shown that in the European context, energy security is best defined on a regional level. Consequently, there is a strong need for common European energy policies and strategies that include neighboring energy transit countries. While these are properly defined in official EU documents, there is a lack of implementation due to collective action problems. Concerning the role of Turkey, the thesis finds that Turkey has an extraordinarily important geostrategic position as a potential regional energy hub, with the potential of improving the EU's security of energy supply. At the same time, Turkey faces many domestic and external challenges and still has a long way to go to become a real energy hub. Nonetheless, EU-Turkey cooperation on energy security is advanced, notably in the view of major pipeline projects. However, this thesis does not find evidence for a link between cooperation in the field of energy security and progress in the overall accession process, for which prospects generally remain negative.