Introduction

In May 2004, ten new Member States (MS) entered the European Union (EU), eight of them former communist countries. Three years later, two more post-communist countries, Bulgaria and Romania, joined the bloc. On 3 October 2005, the EU launched accession negotiations with Turkey, which initiated the final stage of Turkey’s journey towards EU membership. This moment in EU-Turkey relations was seen by many as a truly historical event but it also highlighted the many issues that will have to be tackled on the way. The most salient ones directly related to Turkey include political and economic reforms, relations with Turkey’s neighbors, and the question of the relationship between Turkish and European identity including the connection between the Christian and Muslim traditions. It will be a difficult and long process, where these and many more pressing problems related to both Turkey and the EU will have to be addressed. Concurrently, the EU is learning to “live” with the 12 new MS, while they are struggling to adapt to the new conditions of membership, facing the problems of persistent division between “old” and “new” Europe, between “us” and “them.”