ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to dwell on the various assessments about Turkey's probable membership in the European Union (EU) by linking them with the question of the 'integration /absorption capacity' of the Union. It also aims to decipher how decision makers and governments view Turkey's accession from the viewpoint of the EU. The integration/absorption capacity of the EU entered into the vocabulary of the EU institutions in the 1990s together with the far-reaching eastern enlargement process. Though the European Economic Community (EEC) of the time was quite receptive to signing an association with Turkey in 1963, Turkey's integration as a member state was a different issue. Turkey's continuity with the Ottoman era and link with Ottoman conquests in Europe came to be voiced more often in the European public space in terms of portraying Turkey's bid to join the EU as a threat to European integrity. Turkey provides for a critical case of enlargement from the foreign policy and security viewpoint.
