EU-Turkey Relations in Times of Crisis. What Europeanization and Democratization?

Turkey is geopolitically the most important of the countries currently negotiating the accession to the European Union (EU) and it is a «second wave» democracy that is not yet fully consolidated. In trying to bridge between external Europeanization studies and democratization literature on the international dimension of regime change, the aim of this contribution is to reconstruct and evaluate how EU-Turkey relations have been affected by the economic crisis the EU began to face in 2008 and what its consequences are in terms of the Europeanization and democratization of Turkey. While the first part reconstructs EU-Turkey relations into three cycles, using the analytical concept of linkages and evaluating the degree of economic and political integration, the second part focuses on the concept of leverage, explaining how the EU is exerting democratic pressure on Turkey and evaluating whether the Turkish government can be vulnerable to it. It argues that the EU is currently more interested in strengthening its de facto strategic partnership with Turkey in areas of mutual interest, rather than re-launching the accession process and promoting democracy.