ABSTRACT

The accession of Turkey into the European Union (EU) has two basic dimensions. The first is how much the citizens of Turkey want their country to join, and the second, how much support it finds among the citizens of the EU and their political representatives. This question also concerns the East Central European countries (ECECs), yet to a lesser extent than can be seen for example in Germany or Austria. None of the four countries, Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, and Slovakia, has a large Turkish minority living there, which would create some pressure on the societies to adopt a more specific position. In this chapter we will focus on the question of how the citizens of the four ECECs (also known as the Visegrad countries) view the future membership of Turkey in the EU, including the individual political actors, such as political parties, their representatives as well as several civil society groups. We will be primarily interested in those groupings that have a negative opinion of Turkish membership for the reasoning that those against tend to be more active and articulate, feeling the need to mobilize from early on in order to convince the society of the negatives of Turkish accession to the EU.