ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Turkey–EU relations from the beginning of Turkey’s Westernisation process until now. Several controversial issues remain ahead of Turkey’s membership of the EU, including but not limited to migration policy, a visa liberalisation process, and the Cyprus issue. Even though these challenges further complicate Turkey’s membership process, this chapter will claim that these can be solved within the framework of ‘strategic patience’, a concept based on mutual recognition of both parties’ need for each other. The validity of this concept will be tested against three possible scenarios. The common point of all three scenarios is that they would all have negative political and economic consequences for both parties at a significant level, which can only be overcome through a mutual transformation based on ‘strategic patience’.
