Abstract

Turkey and the European Union (EU) are bound by a curious love affair. Both have always aimed at deepening relations, yet the precise interpretation of what this would entail has been highly contested. It is this odd mix between a shared commitment to each other and widely varying interpretations within (and between) both sides as to what this should mean that explains Turkey’s tortuous path to Europe. This chapter first describes the ebbs and flows in Turkey’s path to Europe from the 1963 Association Agreement to this day, before turning to the factors explaining the nonlinearity of the relationship, factors that lie both in Turkey and in the EU as well as in the interaction between the two.