ABSTRACT
Introduction The EU accession process has been dubbed as the “hour of the executive” (Lippert, Umbach and Wessels 2001, p. 994). In most candidate states some sort of a fast-track method was devised to legislate swiftly in compliance with the acquis (Grabbe 2001, p. 1017). It has been observed that the EU accession process has a tendency to privilege the executive branch over legislature in candidate countries (see also Yavçan and Daniel’s chapter in this volume). Therefore how the central executives are affected by the dynamics of Europeanization is an important area of research, yet a relatively under-researched one in the case of Turkey’s EU accession process. This chapter assesses the impact of Turkey’s EU accession process on the organization of its central executive for managing its relationship with the EU.1 The particular focus is on the decision-making and coordination bodies that have been created in Turkey’s central executive in response to the need to handle Turkey’s relations with the EU. After providing the conceptual framework, this chapter offers a brief survey of such changes made in Turkey’s central executive organization for handling Turkey’s relations with the EU. As Turkey’s relationship dates back to the 1963 Association Agreement, the chapter first offers an overview of how the executive in Turkey was organized for Europe during the association period. Second, it offers a survey of how the organization for Europe has taken place during the accession partnership period after the Helsinki candidacy decision and up until 2013. Finally, an analysis of these changes will be provided with reference to the concepts drawn from the framework provided in the introductory chapter of this volume.
