COST Action ENTER Short Term Scientific Mission grant: Dr. Defne Günay at Ghent University

During her STSM at the Ghent University EU Center Dr. Günay gained several skills and expanded her knowledge on how EU foreign policy can be studied. In her research, she analyzes what drives the EU’s external climate change policy towards Egypt. What the European Union does in its southern neighborhood has received a lot of attention since 2010 in the context of the Arab uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa, the ongoing Syrian civil war and the refugee flows out of Syria. Consequently, security, stability and migration in the EU’s neighborhood policy towards the southern Mediterranean have been at the heart of much scholarly analyses overshadowing the so-called low politics issues like climate change. Dr. Günay addresses this gap in her research and analyzes what the EU does to combat climate change in its bilateral relations with Egypt. As the EU aims to become a leading actor in the global climate change regime through its climate change policies and climate change diplomacy, it is important to analyze whether and how the EU translates this ambition to its relations with Egypt, one of the EU’s southern Mediterranean neighbors. During her stay at the Ghent University’s EU Center, Dr. Günay had the opportunity to get feedback on her research through an internal seminar where she presented her preliminary findings. Dr. Günay learned new databases that could be employed in her research and how to use them effectively as part of this skill transfer at the Center. Furthermore, Dr. Günay had the opportunity to interview EU officials in Brussels and discuss her findings with the researchers at the Center. While Dr. Günay was conducting interviews in Brussels, she also attended a meeting of Mediterranean Energy Regulators Association (MEDREG), which was very relevant for the climate change and energy policies in the EU and Mediterranean countries. In that meeting, Dr. Günay gained more knowledge on the recent developments in energy regulations around the Mediterranean region.