Paper Titles & Abstracts

The history of Turkish EU relations is one of stagnation and mutual misunderstanding except for the period 1997-2004. During this time Turkey made rapid progress from resentful "also ran" at the Luxembourg EU Council, to the opening of accession negotiations following the Brussels EU Council in 2004. However the progress of the early 2000s has stalled for many of the same reasons as it failed to make progress before 1997 - primarily Turkey's record of human rights and democracy and its fractious relationship with Greece and Cyprus. This paper will argue that the progress made from 1997-2004 was the path dependent result of extraneous security factors which led the EU to take a more expedient and therefore lenient, view of the Turkish case and should not be seen as typical of Turkey-EU interaction. Many problems still remain for Turkey and the EU. Since 2004 only one chapter of the Acquis Communautaire has been closed and future prospects are dependent on a solution to the seemingly intractable Cyprus issue. This paper will assess the outlook for the Turkey-EU relationship in the light of this plus the "Arab Spring" and "Eurozone" crises. As the leverage of Greece and Cyprus decreases due to the economic situation and Turkey's geopolitical value increases with the Arab Spring, is Turkey about to benefit from a renewed policy of geostrategic expediency in Brussels or has Turkey's European boat sailed for the time being?