ABSTRACT
The relationship between Turkey and the European Union2 has had its ups and downs since 1963. Although Turkey and EU member states have always had their differences, a lid was kept on them during most of the Cold War thereby allowing for closer relations under the NATO umbrella. Following the dissipation of the ‘Soviet threat’, the dismantlement of the Warsaw Pact and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, these differences re-surfaced. Indeed, in the aftermath of the Cold War, EU politicians began referring to Turkey having become a ‘burden’ for building security in ‘Europe’. Such words came as a shock to Turkish policymakers and analysts alike who, since Turkey’s NATO membership in 1952, had come to think of the ‘security relationship’ as the strongest of ties that bound Turkey to Europe (and the United States). Against such background, EU policymakers’ post-1989 representations of Turkey as a source of ‘insecurity’, when coupled with the EU’s post-1980 coup criticisms of Turkey’s democratisation and human rights record, led some to conclude that EU policy-makers were oblivious to (if not negligent of) Turkey’s ‘legitimate’ security concerns.
