Research Papers

Turkey’s path towards the then European Economic Community began in 1959, but the country became a candidate for full membership only forty years later. Turkey-European Union relations have been coined, over the last decades, by a great sense of instability and uncertainty. Turkey’s actual membership has been successively postponed and its concretisation is far from being real. At the same time, some enlargements were achieved and others are being envisaged, provoking a feeling of frustration. As an external actor whose aim is to promote democracy abroad, with a special emphasis on candidate countries like Turkey, the European Union is frequently criticised for not achieving the desired results. In this regard, some questions should be considered: how does the EU promote democracy? Is it an effective practice? What can be the consequences of many enlargements on the Turkish effort? Is the final aim of full membership enough to ensure democratisation? And if there is only a “stick” and the “carrot” is uncertain? Therefore, basing our analysis on the EU documents and other organisations that assess the country, this paper wants to find out what was the evolution of certain key areas of the Turkish democracy, namely the civil-military relations and the judiciary. Does Turkey take EU’s opinion and demands into consideration? And when it does, does the EU praises the positive developments? What may be the near future of this relationship regarding democratisation?