Policy Documentation Center

Horky, Ondrej

POLICY PAPER
CONTRASTING APPROACHES 
TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES
WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU
(Peer-reviewed) 
Ondřej Horký
July 2009
Institute of International Relations
Nerudova 3
118 50 Praha 1
Czech-French Europe Dialogue Series No. 2
Contrasting Approaches to the Crisis:
New Threats and Opportunities within 
and beyond the EU 
Ondřej Horký
Summary
In early July, the second conference of the Czech-French Europe Dialogue series
took place in Prague. Six Czech and French economists and political scientists
met to discuss the impacts of and the responses to the ongoing global financial
and economic crisis. The participants highlighted the following points:
• Despite the global effects of the crisis, governments’ responses originated at the
national level and did not lead to institutional changes at the international level.
While the financial sector requires selective regulation, there is not enough will
to strengthen the governance of the global economy.
• The crisis has affected EU member states in different ways. Moreover, its
perception and the measures undertaken vary among nations according to their
historical experience. The neoliberal vogue in the mainstream discourse has
ended and the continental economic models were rehabilitated. The crisis gives
us an opportunity to find a European consensus on the balance between the
importance of market incentives and institutional regulation.
• National measures to mitigate the adverse social impacts of the crisis have
suspended the Stability and Growth Pact and substantially increased the current
public debt. Its repayment may take as long as two decades and it presents a
major challenge for the social and intergenerational solidarity in the EU.
• The declining dominance of the United States in the global economy and the
new democratic administration present an opportunity to foster transatlantic
relations. The EU should unite its voice to promoting necessary reforms of the
international monetary system and finding new ways of financing the economic
growth in order to overcome the growing imbalance between developed and
emerging markets.
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 1
Introduction
The first conference of the newly established Czech-French Europe Dialogue series
was titled The French and Czech Presidencies of the EU: Political Priorities,
Institutional and International Issues, and it took place in Paris in January 2009. The
second event, co-organized by the Institute of International Relations, Prague and
CERI–Sciences Po, Paris, took place on 1st July 2009 in Prague. The following
economists and political scientists met to tackle the issue of the current global
financial and economic crisis:
• Christian Lequesne, Director, CERI–Sciences Po
• Michal Mejstřík, Director, Institute of Economic Studies, Charles University, Prague
• Jana Matesová, former Senior Advisor to Executive Director of the World Bank
• Jacques Rupnik, Senior Research Fellow, CERI–Sciences Po
• Tomáš Sedláček, Chief Macroeconomic Strategist, ČSOB Bank, Prague
• Jérôme Sgard, Senior Research Fellow, CERI–Sciences Po
The most important crisis since the Great Depression resulted in a loss in consumption
of trillions of euros worldwide. A local bubble on the US housing market has quickly
spread all over the world, leaving local economies, polities and societies affected in
various ways in both the North and South. There may well be signs of a slow recovery,
but unemployment continues to grow on both sides of the Atlantic.
Some sustain that the crisis is just a price that we must pay for the strong growth of
the world economy during a part of the first decade of the 21st century. With a little
adjustment, the global business would go on as usual. In contrast to that, others have
questioned the very governance of the world finance and economy. They claim it is
high time for the whole paradigm of globalization to change. 
Rather than settling the ideological debate, the conference returned to the causes of
the crises, scrutinized the measures undertaken by the governments and international
organizations, and identified the main challenges and opportunities for the future.
From economic and political standpoints the speakers concentrated on the European
Union and its member states, and on the United States of America, where the crisis
originated.
The apparent and deeper roots of the crisis
The global financial and economic crisis occurred after a period of relatively strong
growth, especially in the emerging markets. For example, the Czech economy rose
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 2
by almost 50% since 2000. As seen from the United States, the crisis is steeper than
in 1973 and 2000, making it similar to that of 1929. Even though the existing pattern
of economic development is unsustainable, it should be judged with prudence for its
undeniable benefits in the past.
The trigger of the crisis has been rightly identified in the US financial sector.
Insatiable financial markets were under-regulated, and “toxic assets” appeared and
resulted in the mortgage crisis. Both Democratic and Republican governments are to
blame for making liquidity too abundant and guaranteeing bad housing loans as
well. 
However, the crisis had deeper roots in the long-term external, fiscal and internal
imbalances of the US economy. Savings from the emerging economies, especially
those of China and India, finance American consumption and public deficits. The
international monetary system should be reformed before the US dollar heavily
depreciates, but the emerging countries are under-represented in the international
financial institutions.
The need to reform the international financial system, currently based on a mixture
of floating and fixed exchange rates, is an important lesson from the Great
Depression. The failure to take a collective action led to further economic downturn
and World War II. At least, excessive nationalism and protectionism comparable to
that of the 1930s seem to be discarded from the international trade.
So far, the response to the global crisis took place at the national level or at informal
fora such as G8 or G20. International organizations, including the International
Monetary Fund, provide analysis and orient discussions, but they are virtually absent
in shaping policies. Even the informal cooperation between central banks has been
smooth and largely sufficient. While different countries have chosen different mixes
of socializing the costs among taxpayers and regulating or closing specific financial
markets, there has been no attempt at building or strengthening institutions at the
global level.
Adjustments in the financial sector, but “business as usual” in the real economy
While some space for moderate adjustments in the financial sector is already open,
there are no signs of a changing economic paradigm. The mainstream economists
sustain that the crisis was not a failure of the principles but of the implementation of
the Washington Consensus: neither private property nor market mechanisms failed.
As an exception to that, the imbalance between the rights of owners and managers
should be narrowed in order to reduce the “short-termism” of the latter. All the
challenges of the Lisbon Strategy to improve the flexibility on the labour market and
promote research and development remain valid. 
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 3
Nevertheless, the crisis offers an opportunity to rethink the economic growth model.
The pre-crisis model was based too much on leverage and liquidity expansion, and
it did not offer enough incentives for the rise in productivity. Returns in traditional
lending were too low and the coordination of risk management failed. Indeed, once
the confidence in markets vanished, the crisis affected even those countries that were
quite strict in regulating their financial markets.
According to the mainstream economists, the failure of the economic science to
predict the crisis does not require any substantial revision of theories and methods.
Nonetheless, the crisis may signify a return to the Keynesian principle of restraining
the “animal spirit” of capitalism to protect its creative forces from self-destruction –
without questioning the capitalist system as such. The economic agents remain
motivated by profits, and frequent calls on business ethics by the policy-makers
without effectively regulating the economy are futile.
From diversity and controversy among the EU member states…
The predominance of national reactions to the crises concerns not only countries on
different continents, but also the common European market as a whole. The feeble
leadership of the international organizations finds its correlate in the passivity of the
Commission. Current responses of the European countries reflect the severity of the
crisis as a result of deregulation policies in the recent past and, quite surprisingly, the
long-run historical experience.
In countries like Belgium and Hungary, the crisis originated in the domestic financial
sector, characterized by toxic assets, excess leverage and high debts in foreign
currency. In other countries, including France and the Czech Republic, financial
regulation was more conservative and the economic recession was mostly imported
from abroad.
The neoliberal belief in self-regulating markets has dominated in the mainstream
discourse, and it has especially influenced the United Kingdom in the 1980s and
some of the post-communist countries in the 1990s. However, it never really
prevailed in Europe, which has a rich welfare state tradition. Public sectors are
important not only in Germany or Nordic countries, but also in Britain. The
seemingly neoliberal new EU member states have de facto conserved their social
protection webs from the communist period. 
Perceptions of the crisis remain of major importance. For example, in autumn 2008,
the Czech politicians were denying the gravity of the crisis while it was the most
important preoccupation of the European citizens. The upcoming Czech EU
presidency was promoting the neoliberal “Europe without barriers” programme and
it was unable to deliver a relevant message on the crisis. The intensity of the media
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 4
coverage in France and Britain, whose large financial sector almost collapsed, is
substantial as well.
The discords on the importance of the EU in mitigating the impacts of the crisis
reflect these differences in perception. Countries such as Poland considered it a
conjectural crisis while others have considered it as a structural one. Britain has
substantially intervened already in the beginning of 2008 when it nationalized the
Northern Rock, Germany was quite reluctant to intervene, and France remained
somewhere in between these two positions despite the former neoliberal statements
by President Sarkozy. This diversity is not a new phenomenon since the previous
attempts at reforming EU treaties received criticism for being too neoliberal or too
socialist as well.
However, the German and Czech mistrust in massive state interventions under both
totalitarian regimes (as well as frequent references to the New Deal in the United
States) shows that diverse national historical experiences still play an important role
in the 21st century.
…to the European unity and consensus
Even though Europe has never fully practiced neoliberalism, the crisis has eventually
delegitimized its discourse on deregulation and marketization of social services. The
crisis seems to mark the return to a more pragmatic approach where the preference
of the market or state can be considered case by case. Compared to the United States,
the automatic stabilizers and social cushions built into the European welfare states
have proven to be efficient in mitigating the social impacts of the crisis. Especially
the Nordic “flexicurity” model seems to offer an optimal balance of labour market
flexibility with social security.
Some signs of the new European unity remain ambiguous. The European social
democratic parties missed the opportunity to capitalize on the renewed consensus
and lost the June elections to the European Parliament. The dividing lines between
more or less damaged European countries did not copy the distinct borders between
the EU-15 and the new member states. The crisis may have erased the remnants of
the Iron Curtain, but the pre-accession solidarity among the Central European and
Baltic countries has vanished.
While the reactions to the crisis were mainly national, a recent Eurobarometer
survey suggests that the majority of Europeans would prefer more coordination at
the EU level and a multilateral response that would include the United States. This
gives more legitimacy to a stronger EU leadership and an opportunity to strengthen
the transatlantic relations. As already suggested, revolutions cannot be expected.
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 5
Nevertheless, this year will be crucial for prospecting reforms of the world financial
architecture. Despite the diversity and idiosyncrasies of the EU member states, the
reform of the international monetary system is in the interest of the whole Union,
and it cannot be promoted separately by its member states. Most of the
recommendations on the regulation of the financial sector, adopted at the G20
London summit in April, are not being implemented. If this is the case, new financial
crisis are likely to occur and it is all the more important for the EU to adopt a joint
approach for the forthcoming Pittsburgh summit. Otherwise, the EU should
generally privilege those multilateral fora where it is represented as a whole to the
‘G’ formats where it is fragmented into nation states.
Moreover, the costs of the crisis will be durable. The Growth and Stability Pact had
already shifted the “normality” of public deficits to 3% and the Maastricht criteria
are now considered as dead. Many European countries are already heavily indebted
and the repayment of newly created debts alone may take as long as one or two
decades. With the ageing populations, the need for environmental adaptation, and
insufficient investments in research and development, fiscal stability and social
solidarity in Europe are in danger. Coordination at the EU level can help us to avoid
falling into the debt trap.
EU and USA: converging or diverging paths?
In spite of the historical relation between the United States and neoliberalism, the
crisis originated on the housing market, where both the Democratic and the
Republican administration intervened against the neoliberal principles.
Paradoxically, even if the US and the UK class among the countries most hit by the
crisis, they appeared as the most interventionist countries by nationalizing large
private companies. These massive state interferences do not, however, put in
question their overall free-market orientation.
The victory of Barack Obama has put an end to another long term cycle in the US
internal politics, but the crisis does not seem to question the American social model.
Even if taxation becomes more progressive, it will remain lower than in Europe. It
is only when private expenses in health care, education and social security are added
that the levels of taxation are comparable on both sides of the Atlantic. Labour
productivity in the EU will probably remain lower because the Europeans prefer
leisure to work are not willing to reduce their holidays.
Even though the United States will recover earlier than most EU countries, the crisis
has further undermined the US hegemony and shifted the world towards global
multipolarity. The emerging markets, especially those in Asia, are much less affected
by the crisis, which reduces the weight of the US and the EU in the global economy.
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 6
After the failures of the American unilateralism, the time has come for the EU to
strengthen the transatlantic relations. 
Recommendations
The participants have identified several threats and opportunities for the European
Union which are related to the ongoing financial and economic crisis:
• Since the economic model which had led to the crisis has brought almost a decade
of strong growth, prudence is recommended in questioning its foundations.
• State interventions that lead to bad loans and moral hazard should be replaced by
incentives for responsible economic players.
• Calls for the ethical behaviour of economic agents in the markets are inefficient
unless they are translated into regulation by policy-makers.
• Not only should the financial market be regulated, but the international monetary
system should be reformed in order to overcome long-term imbalance in the global
economy.
• The way of economic development based on excessive leverage should be
reconsidered.
• The EU should unite to have a strong voice in shaping the world financial system
to its own benefit and to the benefit of all.
• In order to avoid new financial crisis, the recommendations adopted at the London
summit should be implemented and elaborated by the forthcoming G20 summit in
September.
• The EU should profit from the challenged position of the United States and the
openness of the new American administration to strengthening transatlantic
relations.
• After the partial delegitimization of neoliberalism, the EU should find a new
consensus on the optimal balance between market incentives and institutional
regulation.
• Special attention should be paid to the burgeoning public debts of the EU member
states because their repayment will put pressure on social and inter-generational
solidarity.
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 7
Acknowledgments 
The author would like to thank Petr Drulák, Michal Mejstřík and Jacques Rupnik for
their comments on an earlier draft of the policy paper, and Daniel Schneider for the
minutes from the first conference panel.
IIR Policy Paper / July 2007
CONTRASTING APPROACHES TO THE CRISIS:
NEW THREATS AND OPPORTUNITIES WITHIN AND BEYOND THE EU 8


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GLOBAL POLITICAL TRENDS CENTER 
Ame
rican 
presi
dent    Policy Brief 
KÜRESEL SİYASAL EĞİLİMLER MERKEZİ 
 Istanbul Kultur University 
Atakoy Campus,Bakirkoy, 34156 Istanbul-TURKEY 
T: +90 212 498 44 76 | F: +90 212 498 44 05 
www.gpotcenter.org 
              President Obama’s Speech in Cairo  
          A new climate of hope on the world scene 
Özdem Sanberk 
  Will President Obama’s speech in Cairo prove to have been a historic turning point in relations 
between the Islamic world and the United States? There is no doubt that the President himself sin-
cerely intended it to be. And it is easy to see why. The antagonism between the USA and substan-
tial sections of world Muslim opinion, particularly in the Arab Middle East and Iran, is one of the 
biggest challenges faced by US foreign policy, a clear threat to world peace. But can things change 
while the USA is closely aligned with Israel? How ? 
Divided opinions  
   Opinion in the American foreign policy estab-
lishment is sharply divided over this issue. One 
school of thought sees radical political Islam as 
a threat which cannot be defused and can only 
be countered by confrontation. Another how-
ever believes that the US and the West can and 
should work with moderate Islam. 
 
  President Obama has made it clear that he be-
longs to this second school. His first major inter-
national visit was to Turkey: a NATO member-
country and industrial democracy, led by a de-
mocratically elected conservative government. 
In his speech to the Turkish parliament, the 
president stressed that the USA is “not at war” 
with Islam and never will be. Less than two 
months he has given the same message to the 
Arab world in his Cairo speech. 
 
A different president 
Barrack Hussein Obama is a very new kind of 
American president one who spent some of his 
formative years  outside the USA  and indeed 
from a non-Western and non-Christian societies. 
He understands the world  and its realities more 
fully than his predecessors did, but he  also 
went on to scale such heights of American soci-
ety as Columbia and Harvard Universities. The 
president has quickly show that he is indeed a 
highly intelligent man with great capacity for 
originality and attention to detail and reality. 
Though some quarters in Israel and with a sub-
stantial minority of American public opinion 
distrusts him, in the most of the world he is 
seen as an idealist and a man of principle. But 
will he be able to achieve his goals? In other 
words, will well-intentioned policies have the 
desired outcome?  
 
Middle East 
The Arab-Israeli dispute, Iraq, and Iran are all 
intractable and potentially explosive issues.   
Even when peace lies with in easy grasp, it may 
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T: +90 212 498 44 76 | F: +90 212 498 44 05 
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GLOBAL POLITICAL TRENDS CENTER 
Page 2 
get turned.  Former President Clinton very 
nearly reached a peace deal between Israel and 
the Palestinians, only to have it turned down by 
the two sides over the status of Jerusalem.  
 
  Since the 1990 things have got very much 
worse in the Middle East, partly because of 
hardening attitudes on both sides in the Arab 
Israeli dispute and of course also because of the 
tragic consequences of President Bush's decision 
to invade and occupy Iraq. 
 
Reactions 
In his speech to the Egyptian Parliament, 
Obama signaled that he is a new sort of Ameri-
can with a new sort of approach.  He had al-
ready shown with his visit to Ankara that he 
wants detente between Islam and the western 
world and will go as far as he can to achieve it. 
Among American rightwing circles and in Israel 
there is dislike and distrust of this approach--
fearing that it will mean one-sided concessions 
and the strengthening of Muslim militants. 
Obama is seen as an "appeaser". 
 
  Reaction in the Arab world seems to be mixed. 
The question which is being asked is “what can 
he actually do in practice?"  For it certainly is 
true that the President is not repudiating the 
policies of his immediate predecessor, so much 
as building upon them and redirecting them. 
George W. Bush also favoured a two state solu-
tion in  
Israel and Palestine.  
 Barrack Obama has amplified this and speaks 
more strongly about turning it into a reality.  
But can America should next force the Israelis to 
submit to a deal. If there is to be real Arab-
Israeli detente, both   sides have to work and be 
creative. Of course the road to success cannot be 
as simple as that. Is there any way out of this 
deadlock?  
 
 Turkey’s role 
Turkey under the Foreign Policy direction of Mr 
Ahmet Davutoğlu may be a real player in the 
region. In fact over the last few years Turkish 
diplomacy  has focused increasingly on the 
Arab and Islamic world. Turkey has no interest 
in any of the territorial issues in the Arab world. 
In that sense it is an outsider. But it does want 
stability and prosperity among its southern 
neighbours. Can Turkey act as a complementary 
regional force for cooperation and dialogue? 
The answer to that may depend on the closer 
cooperation between Turkey and the United 
States and in particular on the personal rapport 
and confidence that arises between Prof. Da-
vutoglu and Mrs. Clinton There are some en-
couraging signs that a good working relation-
ship is being created. It must be  of course a real 
partnership. But the weakening of Turkey's bi-
lateral ties with Israel may be a serious problem. 
On the other hand let’s not forget that Turkey’s 
role in the region  is no longer mainly an inter-
mediary. There are other likely areas where 
Turkey and the US can work together to help 
change the Middle East for the better: 
 
Iraq is an obvious one. For a post-occupation 
Iraq to be stable and prosperous, Turkey and 
other regional powers will have to give the gov-
ernment there practical support in a number of 
ways to see Iraq does not collapse into chaos or 
worse. The work of doing this has been antici-
pated by Messr. Gul and Erdoğan in regional 
meetings since 2002-2003 and these regional ini-
tiatives proved to be very useful. The same  re-
gional links and contacts can be used to activate 
the dialogue with the US and to institutionalise 
regional cooperation. 
      
Iran 
At this point we have to consider the role of 
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Atakoy Campus,Bakirkoy, 34156 Istanbul-TURKEY 
T: +90 212 498 44 76 | F: +90 212 498 44 05 
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GLOBAL POLITICAL TRENDS CENTER 
Page 3 
Iran, where President Ahmedinejad is poised 
for his second term in  office, and so likely to 
remain outside such cooperation? The possibil-
ity of Iran  becoming a nuclear power is deeply 
risky and highly destabilising for the region, 
including for Turkey  and particularly the Gulf. 
But it does not seem inclined to make a public 
reversal on this point. So informal contacts may  
be the only way forward. Here again Turkey, 
which has good bilateral relations with Iran, 
may be able to act as a channel. 
 
 Economy 
There are other projects in the Arab world 
which Turkey has been working on which may 
be relevant to a new generation of Obama-
inspired regional initiatives for peace. Poverty 
and economic backwardness in the Arab world 
are widely regarded as the main sources of its 
instability and proneness to extremist radical-
ism. Turkey’s Union of Chambers (the TOBB)  
projects for   build industrial zones in the poorer 
regions in   the Middle East may represent a 
practical way of helping trigger industrialisa-
tion in Arab countries and raising incomes.  
 
Af/Pac 
Afghanistan and Pakistan are another critical 
area where Turkey is already playing a con-
structive role as Minister of Foreign Affairs 
Prof. Davutoğlu’s recent visit in the region 
shows. This is an area where Turkey and the 
United States have converging interests and the 
stakes are high for the peace and security both 
for the region and the rest of the world. 
 
Tone down 
Will there be a breakthrough? No one can tell 
but on past form probably not.  President 
Obama cannot succeed single-handled and pre-
sent signs suggest he will not gain the political 
support he needs, both at home and in the Mus-
lim world, to achieve big successes especially in 
the Middle East. But he can perhaps tone down 
the conflict between the Islamic world and the 
West in many places across the world, from In-
donesia westwards and encourage cooperation 
and understanding. That in itself will be a 
worthwhile achievement. 
 
Europe 
Turkey's candidacy for the EU is relevant to all 
these considerations -- and it is natural that the 
President raised it in his first overseas trip in 
April. Turkey is being rejected essentially be-
cause it is Muslim. Of course Turkey has to 
demonstrate that it is effectively accelerating its  
the move towards deeper liberal democracy 
based on freedom of speech, freedom of press 
and gender equality and the European Union’s 
attitude is a rebuff to  Muslim citizens in the ex-
isting EU. Not just Muslims, but Africans and 
Asians generally see the Merkel/Sarkozy exclu-
sion of Turkey as a kind of racism and Oriental-
ism. So perhaps the United States and, those in 
Europe who are friendly to the Turkish applica-
tion, and Turkey itself should foster dialogue 
and cooperation to speed up the accession proc-
ess. Obama no doubt  understands that the ap-
plication is in suspended animation at the mo-
ment and that a possible rupture, if it is not 
properly tackled in the years ahead by all par-
ties, would create a new Western-Muslim rift 
with long-term consequences. 
Opportunity 
President Obama and his policies represent a 
new climate of hope on the world scene. So peo-
ple of good will should be trying to encourage 
dialogue and information to find ways of trans-
lating the Presidents fine speeches into practical 
reality. We should not be foolishly optimistic 
but we should seize our chances-- because this 
is an opportunity and there may never be one 
like it again. 
 Istanbul Kultur University 
Atakoy Campus,Bakirkoy, 34156 Istanbul-TURKEY 
T: +90 212 498 44 76 | F: +90 212 498 44 05 
www.gpotcenter.org 
GLOBAL POLITICAL TRENDS CENTER 
Page 4 
Özdem Sanberk 
 Ret.Ambassador, Former Undersecretary of the  
MFA 
Özdem Sanberk is a member of the High Advisory 
Board at the Global Political Trends Center. 
Graduating from Lycée de Galatasaray and the 
Faculty of Law at Istanbul University, Özdem San-
berk has served for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs 
in various positions - at the Turkish Embassies in 
Madrid, Amman, Bonn and Paris. He was also 
appointed to different offices at the Permanent 
OECD and UNESCO Representation. Between the 
years 1985 - 1987, he was the Foreign Policy Chief 
Advisor to the then Prime Minister Turgut Özal. 
From 1987 to 1991, he served as Ambassador to the 
European Union in Brussels, from 1991 to 1995 as a 
permanent undersecretary at the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs in Ankara, and as the Turkish 
Ambassador to the United Kingdom in London 
between 1995 and 2000. Ambassador Sanberk 
retired in 2000 from his post at the Ministry of 
Foreign Affairs and has been the Director of the 
Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation 
(TESEV) until September 2003. He is one of the well 
known public intellectuals in Turkey whose views 
are frequently called upon by various circles.  
Özdem Sanberk 
Emekli Büyükelçi, Eski Dışişleri Bakanlığı Müste-
şarı 
Özdem Sanberk, Küresel Siyasal Eğilimler Merkezi 
(Global Political Trends Center - GPoT) Yüksek 
Danışma Kurulu üyesidir. Galatasaray Lisesi ve 
İstanbul Üniversitesi Hukuk Fakültesi mezunu olan 
Özdem Sanberk, Dışişleri Bakanlığı bünyesinde 
Madrid, Amman, Bonn ve Paris Büyükelçilikleri'n-
de, OECD ve UNESCO Daimi Temsilcilikleri'nde 
çeşitli kademelerde görevde bulunduktan sonra, 
1985-1987 yılları arasında dönemin Başbakanı Tur-
gut Özal'ın Dış Politika Danışmanlığı'na getirilmiş-
tir. 1987-1991 yılları arasında Brüksel'de Avrupa 
Topluluğu nezdinde Türkiye Büyükelçisi, 1991-1995 
yıllarında Ankara'da Dışişleri Bakanlığı Müsteşarı 
ve 1995-2000 yılları arasında da Londra'da Türkiye 
Büyükelçisi olarak görev yapmıştır. 2000 yılında 
Dışişleri Bakanlığı'ndaki görevinden emekliye ayrı-
lan Büyükelçi Sanberk, 2003 yılı Eylül ayına kadar 
Türkiye Ekonomik Sosyal Etüdler Vakfı (TESEV) 
Direktörlüğü görevinde bulunmuştur. Sanberk, 
görüşlerine birçok kesim tarafından başvurulan ve 
Türkiye'de oldukça saygın bir yeri olan entelektüel-
ler arasında yer almaktadır. 
About GPoT  
Global Political Trends Center (GPoT) was established as a research unit uder the auspices of Istanbul Kultur 
University in 2008. 
 
GPoT Center aims to produce innovative and distinctive policy recommendations by analyzing the 
contemporary trends in regional and international politics. 
 
GPoT Hakkında  
Küresel Siyasal Eğilimler Merkezi (GPoT), 2008 yılında İstanbul Kültür Üniversitesi çatısı altında bağımsız bir 
araştırma birimi olarak kurulmuştur. 
 
GPoT bünyesinde yapılan çalışmalar ile bölgesel ve uluslararası güncel siyasal eğilimler analiz edilmekte ve 
bu konularda öneriler sunulmaktadır. 
 
*The opinions and conclusion expressed herein are those of the individual author and does not necessarily 
reflect the views of GPoT or Istanbul Kultur University. 
 
*Bu çalışmada belirtilen fikirler ve sonuçlar yazarın kendi görüşleridir, GPoT ve İstanbul Kültür Üniversite-
si’nin görüşlerini bağlayıcı nitelikte değildir. 


President Obama\u2019s speech in Cairo: a new climate of hope on the world scene