Turkish politics and the fading magic of EU enlargement

Policy brief
Sinan Ulgen
07 September 2010

Open hostility towards Turkish accession in some EU countries has made it hard for Turkish politicians to continue preparing the country for membership. But, as Sinan Ulgen explains in this policy brief, there are other reasons why Turkey's pro-EU consensus has crumbled so quickly: Turkey’s politics is too polarised, its EU accession too dramatic, its people's expectations too high. He explains what Turkish politicians and EU leaders must do now to salvage the accession process.

Sinan Ulgen is chairman of EDAM (Centre for Economic & Foreign Policy Studies, an Istanbul-based think-tank) and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe.

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