The purpose of this analysis is to present Turkey's relations with the European Union and to determine their impact on the contemporary policy of Turkish authorities. Since the submission of an official application for membership by the Republic of Turkey in 1987, accession negotiations had proceeded extremely slowly until the whole process ended in deadlock in 2018.
ZBN Analysis no. 11 (50) / 2019
14 October 2019
The purpose of this analysis is to present Turkey's relations with the European Union and to determine their impact on the contemporary policy of Turkish authorities. Since the submission of an official application for membership by the Republic of Turkey in 1987, accession negotiations had proceeded extremely slowly until the whole process ended in deadlock in 2018. Although Turkey and the European Union share many common problems (e.g. migration crisis, threat of terrorism, energy security), their cooperation is extremely limited. Hence, feeble attempts to establish a dialogue on selected issues have not been effective at all. In recent years, Turkey's attitude towards the EU has been shaped by President Erdogan's anti-Western rhetoric and is dominated by internal factors, which significantly hinders a possibility for returning to positive relations.
In the photo: President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan at the press conference after a meeting with the President of the European Council Donald Tusk in Brussels in 2015 (credit: tccb.gov.tr)