TURKEY'S ACCESSION TO THE EUROPEAN UNION: DOES CULTURE AND IDENTİTY PLAY A ROLE?

Abstract

It is a highly acknowledged fact that in the European Union 's enlargement process, Turkey plays a highly interesting role and deserves analytical attention in terms of its theoretical and policy making implications. This fact has become more pronounced since the start of accession talks with Turkey on 3 October 2005. However, the opening of the Turkish accession talks marked the beginning of a new era in terms of defining what constitutes Europe and the European identity. It is for this reason that Turkey's accession to the EU should be evaluated within the langer framework of EU enlargement and the European integrati on process and goes beyond an analysis of bilateral relations. Thus, Turkey's ability to adopt the EU standards is only one aspect of the whole picture with the EU specific factors playing an equally important role. This paper argues that the enlargement process of the EU determines the boundaries of what is Europe and what is not and that Turkey's accession to the EU becomes the most important and visible line of demarcation in that aspect. This means that a candidate 's accession negotiations to the EU are determined by perceptions of that candidate's fit into a predetermined European identity. That is why the Turkish case is important because it illustrates the ambivalent nature of Europeanness and attempts by memberstates to clearly define it. The purpose of this article is to analyze to process of enlargement from the sociological/constructivist approaches with regard to enlargement in general and towards Turkey in particular.