History

Turkey and the EU have always aimed at deepening relations, yet the precise interpretation of what this would entail has been highly contested. It is this odd mix of a shared commitment to each other and widely varying interpretations within (and between) both sides as to what this should mean that explains Turkey’s tortuous path to Europe. This chapter first accounts for the ebbs and flows in Turkey’s path to Europe from the 1963 Association Agreement to the present, before turning to the factors explaining the non-linearity of the relationship, factors that lie both in Turkey and in the EU as well as in the interaction between the two.