Sophie’s Choice for the European Union: Realpolitik or Values? Inshallah Both Policy Note / Nilgün Arısan Eralp  

"This is neither an evaluation of the postponed Progress Report 2015 nor an overview of the Turkey-European Union relations on the tenth anniversary of the initiation of the accession negotiations that has come almost to a complete halt at the moment, although parties refrain from an irrevocable rupture.  Actually, these negotiations stalled almost as soon as they began, first because of the exclusion of Turkey on an identity basis by some Europeans and then Turkey’s closed ports and airports to Cyprus and recently, the growing authoritarianism and evaporating rule of law in the country.  At the heart of this analysis lie the frozen conflicts in the region, and especially the Nagorno-Karabakh war, that reverberates across the political interaction of all three triangles. We hope that a systematic look at the global political and economic context of this conflict will help promote greater stability and openness in the region.

EU is not on the real agenda of Turkey which is going through one of the most chaotic periods of its recent history. It is being criticised for increasing authoritarianism, economy has been slowing and there is an enormous political tension that has escalated with the recent biggest act of terror that took place on 10th of October 2015. In these highly instable and dangerous circumstances,  the country is  heading to the polls in a very tense environment, in less than six months after the rather inconclusive results of the general elections held on  June  7 this year..."