“I THANK GREECE FOR BEING OUR EUROPEAN SHIELD”: VON DER LEYEN COMMISSION’S SPATIAL IMAGINATIONS DURING THE TURKISH-GREEK BORDER CRISIS IN MARCH 2020

Abstract

This study focuses on the spatial imaginations of the European Commission’s response to the TurkishGreek border crisis in March 2020. The goal is to unpack the discursive dynamics of space using a critical geopolitical perspective that treats space as a constructed social category. To that end, the Commission’s official statements and policies on the crisis are deconstructed in terms of territoriality, securitization, and identity. The article advances the argument that increased political pressure and the influx of refugees from Turkey triggered a reflex reserved for nation-states, resulting in the European Union flexing its geopolitical muscles. In these practices, Turkey has served as the constitutive other of European space by representing the outside, insecure, and distant.