EU-Turkey relations and the German perspective

Abstract

The relations between Turkey and the member states of today's European Union (EU) have a long history and cover many dimensions from politics to trade, migration or culture. Taking up a historical approach, this paper analyses EU-Turkey relations with the aim to structure the political and academic debate along certain narratives. At the same time, the paper includes an analysis of how positions of German governments and political leaders within and towards the EU-Turkey relations have been constructed and how they developed over time. As an analytical framework the following narratives are put forward: a) geostrategic, b) economic, c) political and d) identity. The authors argue that the relevance of these different narratives in the debate changed significantly during the different phases of EU-Turkey relations since the end of the 1950s, determined not only by developments within the EU and Turkey, but also by major shifts in the international system. © Peter Lang GmbH.