The relationship between Turkey and EU dates back to 1959 when an application was made to the European Economic Community (EEC). The relation was not very close until 1999, when Turkey received a candidacy status. This was a good step forward for Turkey’s EU accession process. Generally speaking, Turkey then made significant progress to get incentives (membership, opening the negotiation) that are promised to Turkey in return for fulfilling the Copenhagen Criteria. After the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came into power, the domestic reforms accelerated and many reform packages were prepared from 2002-2004 including the reforms of abolishment of the death penalty and minority rights. However, after late 2004, the credibility of EU incentives started to decrease as a result of demands including an Additional protocol, recognition of Cyprus and negative signals from some leaders of EU member states with regards to offering Turkey privileged membership, an open-ended structure to negotiations, concessions on Cyprus and the Armenian issues and so on. Therefore, due to these reasons, the credibility and timing of incentives became unclear and unknown. After 2005, the AKP became a veto player in the stagnation of domestic reforms.
The critical question that requires examination in EU-Turkey relations is why both sides continue accession negotiations although tension exists between both sides, resulting long-term waiting fatigue in Turkey and “enlargement fatigue” on the EU side. There could be a range of factors responsible for this situation including perceived economic benefits, controlling immigrants, asylum and energy security. However, explaining these factors remains problematic using more rational theories of Europeanisation that focus on material incentives such as conditionality. An alternative approach, forwarded in the paper, is to employ a sociological institutionalist perspective in order to understand why political elites in the EU and Turkey continue to support domestic change under conditions of declining accession incentives. Here, the role of social learning and socialisation around EU norms is examined in order to show the value of a sociological perspective within this debate. This paper also examines the alternative ways (e.g. privileged membership) in which continuing collaboration between Turkey and EU in the future due to unpredictability of Turkey’s journey to EU accession.
