ABSTRACT
It is widely believed that Turkey's failure to implement its commitment to make its political and human rights system converge with that of the EU has provided legitimate grounds for the EU's differentiated policy towards Turkey. However, this does not seem a convincing argument for the EU' s different treatment of Turkey; in fact, it cannot explain why similar political issues in the CEECs have attracted an entirely different response on the part of the EU from those in Turkey. The EU has guided and even directed and catalyzed the political reform process in the CEECs through its pre-accession strategy and through its extensive membership requirements in relation to the stability of institutions, the guaranteeing of democracy and respect for human rights. However, the EU has taken a different approach to similar political issues in Turkey: its response to these issues seems not only to have been more rigid and critical, but also has lacked the necessary instruments to help the democratization process and improvement of the human rights system in Turkey. This difference between the EU's treatment ofTurkey and of the CEECs has generated different results in the CEECs and in Turkey. That is, the EU has been more effective in influencing the policy reforms and outcome of these reforms in the CEECs than it has in Turkey, since the EU's clear commitment to the prospect of the CEECs' membership of the EU has forced the CEECs to undertake the necessary political reforms. However, the EU has been less effective in influencing a similar process in Turkey because of its reluctance to offer the country a similar accession instruments and membership commitment. In order to support the above argument, this chapter looks at:
• The emergence and development of the EU's political identity with reference to the characteristics ofthe EU's human rights policy towards the third parties.
