Perception of Syrian refugees who live in Turkey about European Union: Comparative analysis

A lot of studies have been carried out in many disciplines on asylum seekers, who are the actors of the phenomenon of migration. There is definitely an interdisciplinary aspect in the nature of every work whose subject is human. The problems experienced by the asylum seekers and the countries targeted by the asylum seekers have been an important field of study in the field of international relations and politics, especially after the Syrian war. In this respect, the acceptance of asylum seekers and the measures taken against asylum seekers along the way by EU countries have become an important agenda topic. It has been observed that many studies on asylum seekers are carried out by both official and academic institutions both in EU countries and in Turkey. These studies were not generally refugee-centred and the occasions caused by asylum were revealed. The aim of this research is to reveal the EU perception of Syrian refugees who live in Turkey. For this purpose, semi-structured interview method was used and interviews were conducted within the framework of 20 research questions. As a result of the analysis of the data obtained, the perceptions of the Syrian refugees about the EU have been emerged. According to the research data, a significant part of the participants (44.2%) gave the answer of "unity" when describing the EU. However, this union's political, economic, security etc. aspects were not mentioned. It was understood from the interviews that the majority of the participants (76.9%) did not want to go to Europe before the war. The fact that they have a settled order in their own country and live peacefully and happily are also explained as the reasons why they do not think about Europe. Twenty-one of the participants (40%) stated that they did not want to go to Europe while they were in Syria before the war and they did not want to go after they came to Turkey too. Twelve of the participants (23.1 %) stated that desire to go to Europe started to occur after the war although they did not want Europe before the war. The positive feeling about the EU was compassion for 55.6% of the participants. 28.5% of the participants stated that they have a feeling of love towards the EU. The basis of this feeling is the EU's efforts to help Syrian refugees and resettle them in their own countries. The number of those who did not express any negative feelings to the question of what are their negative feelings about the EU is 26.7%. It was determined that all of these participants had positive feelings about the EU. The number of those who say they cannot give an answer is 3.8%. Broken heart was found to be the most prevalent emotion among the participants' feelings towards the EU. It was determined that 48% of the participants experienced the feeling of broken heart towards the EU. This emotion is followed by sadness. 28.8% of the participants experience the feeling of sadness. It was also determined that 13.4% of the participants said they were angry towards the EU, 5.7% of the participants experienced the feeling of racism and 3.8% of the participants experienced the feeling of hatred. While 3.8% of the participants stated that the EU is anti-Muslim, all of the other participants stated that the reason for their negative feeling was the border incidents and the strict rules that the EU applied against refugees. Forty-seven (90.2%) of the participants expressed that the economy had a great impact on their thoughts about the EU. Twenty-four (46.8%) respondents say that the EU society loves Syrians. The number of respondents stating that the EU society does not like Syrians is one (1.9%). Twenty-five (48%) of the participants stated that they wanted to go to Germany. About half of the participants, twenty-five (48%) stated that Germany behaved worthy of the EU. Twenty-five (48%) of the participants stated that Greece, Bulgaria, Serbia, Hungary did not behave worthy of the EU in the context of asylum seekers and refugees.