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Online courses have become an increasingly attractive format for delivering teacher training. However, the low retention rates are a critical and still unsolved issue. This paper presents the results of a randomized controlled trial aimed at testing the impact of a personalized support model on teachers' retention in online training courses. The support consisted of a package of nine messages triggered by teachers' characteristics and their specific (in)actions on the course platform. The study involved 3,777 lower-secondary education professional and student teachers from nine European Union Member States and Turkey, who were invited to participate in four new online courses in school year 2018/2019. The experimental estimates show that the offered support increased course completion by 10 percentage points among professional teachers in EU Member States, while it had no effects among student teachers nor in Turkey. Implications for online teacher training providers--such as the importance of reaching out to participants with poor online training experience and who do not start the courses in time--are discussed.

Education is the main vehicle for empowering adults, and can contribute to community wellbeing. However, regarding mature adults (MAs) (over 45 years old), age has been identified in various studies as a significant barrier to accessing educational activities. This paper focuses on MAs' motivations to learn through an exploratory survey undertaken in six European countries. A K-means cluster analysis based on 16 variables has been run on n = 846 valid cases. Four clusters describing distinctive behaviours and attitudes of MAs towards learning activities were identified. The study confirms that MAs' motivations to learn are very diverse, overcoming some of the so-called "myths of global aging," such as the homogeneity of MAs or the correlation between age and a decline in motivation to learn. Furthermore, analysing the main motivations of MA learners can be useful for adapting education to cater to their specific needs, boosting a more inclusive education, and promoting MAs' empowerment.

ELBEP (Eliminating Language Barriers in European Prisons Through Open and Distance Education Technology) is a multilateral project funded by the European Union (EU) Lifelong Learning, Grundtvig (Adult Education) Programme. It aims to overcome language/communication problems between prison staff and foreign inmates at European prisons via online language teaching programs for the staff. This paper discusses the rationale and application of the project with an eye to the related literature and theoretical background. The project outcomes and findings can serve as an example for similar research studies.

In biogeopolitics, the key state stakeholders develop and aim to accomplish their geopolitical goals by (mis)management and biopolitical governance of vulnerable population. In this paper, this population refers to asylum‐related migrants who use or aim to use an asylum request as their entry mechanism to the European Union. This paper explores the emergence of biogeopolitics at the EU borderland between Turkey and Greece during the COVID‐19 pandemic in 2020. Statistics about irregular migration from Turkey to Greece, field observations in Lesvos (Greece) as well as media and social media discussions about COVID‐19 in Lesvos are analysed. In the biogeopolitics of COVID‐19, the governance and (mis)management of asylum‐related migrants include policies and practices to let these migrants to live or die, including regulating illegal border‐crossings, everyday living conditions at the reception centres, and actions regarding the pandemic. The COVID‐19 pandemic was used as an additional tool to foster biogeopolitics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Europeanization has been a fashionable term over the last decade. However, when it comes to foreign policy, extant work has produced inconsistent findings and few theoretical insights. This paper aims to fill this gap by constructing a synthetic theory which integrates into a ‘thick rationalist’ approach four mechanisms of Europeanization identified in the literature (policy adaptation, normative framing, differential empowerment, diplomatic coordination), and specifies a set of mediating conditions that can explain variations in the scope and direction of Europeanization. This theory is used in order to explain why Greece has become, since 1999, an active and solid supporter of Turkey’s European Union (EU) membership prospect. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper examines the peace dividend effect of Turkish convergence to EU membership. By employing a multi-region dynamic CGE model, we examine the prospect for conflict resolution if Turkey becomes an EU member. The model allows us to analyse several scenarios that imply varying amounts of reduction of the military expenditure/GDP ratios. On the one hand, this change will cause a decrease in sectoral demand for military expenditures, while on the other hand, reallocation of the reduced expenditure on (i) education, (ii) tax decrease, and (iii) infrastructure, should have a huge growth impact. Our dynamic CGE simulation experiments emphasize the economic gain for all parties involved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By European Union and NATO standards, Greece consistently allocates substantial human and material resources to defence. The Greek defence burden (i.e. military expenditure as a share of GDP) has invariably been appreciably higher than the EU and NATO averages. The paper applies an autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) to present cointegrated estimates of the demand function for Greek military expenditure, in which domestic political factors and external security determinants are incorporated. Our empirical findings suggest that Greek defence spending over the period 1960-1998 has been influenced by both external security concerns, namely Turkey, as well as changes in the domestic political scene. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2016, the Europe Union (EU) and Turkey agreed that all refugees who reached Greece through unauthorized means would be returned to Turkey. The deal was the latest effort to ‘stem the tide’ of refugees fleeing the Middle East. This was not the first time negotiations between Europe and Turkey resulted in an agreement concerning problematic populations. As part of negotiations after the First World War, Turkey and Europe agreed that Christians in Turkey would be sent to Greece in exchange for Greece’s small population of Muslims. Goalwin's article draws on historical research and contemporary policy analysis to compare the 2016 EU-Turkey Refugee Agreement and the 1923 Greco-Turkish population exchange. The comparison reveals the European response to today's refugee crisis to be a product of longstanding prejudices in Europe and Turkey alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study intends to analyze the issue of European energy security from a historical perspective and also from the point of view of international relations, as well as the geopolitical, geostrategic and geoeconomic role of Turkey in shaping the European energy security complex besides the EU. Emphasizing that Turkey has the role of an "energy hub" between Central Asia-Caucasus and the EU, our research focuses on the special importance of interconnected oil and gas network projects, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC Pipeline) or the Nabucco gas pipeline and the Turkey-Greece-Italy Interconnector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article surveys the history of Cyprus's conflict and partition to derive historical, tactical, and strategic lessons about how the Cyprus problem should be resolved and about the value of partitions more generally. Cyprus is complex. Tensions between North and South are very low, in part because the partition has been a cause of peace. However, both sides remain pervaded by antagonistic and one-sided biases, histories, and myths. Moreover, almost every plausible solution, including the Annan Plan, that proposes to unite the island also incorporates the group-based and gridlock-prone characteristics of the conflict-generating 1960 constitution. A Cyprus solution solves little and creates risks. A better plan to create a permanent peace is to recognize a much smaller North, and bring all sides including Turkey into the European Union. This would create peace, give most Greek Cypriot refugees their land and homes back, and restore all freedoms throughout the island. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]