IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Çiğdem Nas participated in the Jean Monnet Network Kick-Off Conference entitled “Linking to Europe at the Periphery (LEAP)". The conference, which took place on 2 October 2019 at the Middle East Technical University (METU) in Ankara, was attended by project partners, representatives from the EU Delegation to Turkey, students and faculty members.

The EU-funded project is coordinated by METU Assoc. Prof. Zeynep Başak Alpan. The project, which is set to continue for three years, attempts to analyse core-periphery relations in the Europe and find answers to the question of how Europe is taught, learned, experienced, and discussed in its periphery.

At the conference, IKV Secretary General Assoc. Prof. Nas delivered a speech entitled “European Integration and the Periphery: Limits of Europeanisation”. Assoc. Prof. Nas evaluated the effects and contradictions the rules and values set by the core create on the region regarded as periphery. Assoc. Prof. Nas indicated that the lack of communication and divergence of understanding between the core and the periphery has played a role in the current impasse in Turkey’s EU accession process. She went on to say that the core’s attempts to manage and influence the periphery were met with resistance by the periphery.