Turkey’s slow EU candidacy: Insurmountable hurdles to membership or simple Euro-scepticism?

Article abstract:

This contribution focuses on how the issue of EU membership has affected the domestic political debates in Turkey in the context of the Copenhagen political criteria. It concentrates on the period since the Helsinki summit, where Turkey was granted official candidacy status. This analysis seeks to unveil the bottlenecks within the government concerning the political Copenhagen conditions and discusses the positions of the coalition partners. After presenting a background and history to recent EU-Turkish relations, it evaluates the progress reports of the EU and subsequently the political discourse in Turkey since 1999. Finally, the contribution concludes by linking the Turkish domestic discourse to discussions in the EU and other candidate countries.