ABSTRACT

Human rights policy issues are relatively more transparent than standard foreign policy issues due to the existence of a body of principles codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, and the Human Dimension of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. This chapter explains the reluctance of the European Union (UN) to assume an anchoring role will interact with Turkey’s non-credible commitment to policy reform and exacerbate the anchor/credibility dilemma that characterised the EU-Turkey relations. The defiance of the National Security Council, coupled with increasing pressure from human rights activists, forced the EU to maintain some pressure on Turkey. Developments in 1985 did not lead to a significant change in the EU’s human rights policy towards Turkey. It became evident that the member states were in favour of gradually reviving the association which, unlike the EU-Greece association during the Greek junta, had not been suspended.