Turkey's Relationship With the European Union

The relationship between Turkey and the European Union (EU) represents a wide spectrum of concerns and motives relevant to both and carves the path for dense political and economic transformations in both political entities, directly impacting and revolutionizing the socio-cultural milieu and laying basis for fundamental movement in ideological and existential determinations outlining aims and ambitions central to both at all levels of their positioning as global and international actors which in turn directly influences internal politics and decision making processes.

The association between the two entities is a direct determinant of the increasingly relevant concept of regionalism wherein mutual interests drive political and economic alignments amongst states characterized by integration into regions. Regionalism has become increasingly popular as states have realized that their interests are more closely bound up with contiguous states, that their interactions are more frequent with closer neighbors, and that regional coordination is an effective method of protecting their interests and promoting milieu goals at the global level. However, the boundaries of these regions, and their criteria for membership and exclusion, seldom occur naturally and obviously. The patterns of congruence, complementarity and connection between states tend to overlap, complicating the task of defining a regional configuration in which members' interactions are more intense and interests more convergent than between members and non-members. Emphasis on different communities of interests or patterns of interaction will produce different regional configurations. So the membership of the region is determined by its defining criteria, or those communit...

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...ture as much as the economy, and are based on the logic that the more culturally similar Turkey becomes to Europe

Works Cited

• Yesilada, Birol. (2002). “Turkey’s Candidacy for EU Membership”. Middle East Journal, Vol. 56. No. 1. Publisher: Middle East Institute.

• International Crisis Group. 2007. Europe Report No. 184. “Turkey and Europe: The Way Ahead”

• Wesley, Michael. (1997). “The politics of exclusion: Australia, Turkey and definitions of Regionalism”. The Pacific Review.

• Commission of the European Communities, Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament: Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2009-2010, Annex 1. (Brussels: Official Publications of the European Communities, 2009)

• Commission of the European Communities, Regular Report: Turkey 1999, Annex 1. (Brussels: Official Publications of the European Communities, 1999)