Fokus Türkei en+ Berichte+ Einschätzungen+ Analysen+ Berichte+ Einschätzungen+ Beri Istanbul Dez. 2006 EU’s“soft power”: The Case of Turkey Şahin Alpay 1 The European Union’s“soft power”, its ability to attract and persuade countries to adopt its norms and goals, has united most of the European states on the basis of the principles of“democracy, human rights, rule of law, respect for and protection of minorities”, and transformed Europe into a bastion of peace and prosperity in the world. Enlargement and the extension of membership to an increasing number of European countries, has been EU’s most successful soft power policy. EU’s conditionality for membership has helped transform both the authoritarian regimes of Southern Europe and totalitarian regimes of Central and Eastern Europe into stable market democracies. Since the mid-1990s the perspective of EU integration has also been helping to encourage Turkey to liberalize its democracy and economy along EU norms and standards. Turkey, however, may be said to be the test case of the dependence of the transformative capacity of EU’s soft power on the credibility of the EU and its institutions in the minds of the accession country’s citizens and elites. In this paper, I will try to first present a brief overview of the ups and downs of Turkey’s relations with the EU since the early 1960s. Secondly, on the basis of that overview, I will try to show how the rising and falling credibility of the EU has affected the political transformation of Turkey. Thirdly, I will try to point to the factors that explain the drastically falling public support for EU accession recently. And finally, I will discuss possible scenarios for the future of the Turkey-EU relationship, and their probable consequences for Turkey. **** Turkey’s relations with what was to become the EU in 1992 began with the signing of an association agreement with the EEC in 1963 which envisaged a stage by stage integration, including the establishment of a customs union. It also involved a vague promise of full membership in the future. Ankara’s motivation for signing the agreement was primarily to prevent Greece which had signed a similar agreement in 1961 from gaining unfair advantage in its relations with Europe. Referat: Westliche Industrieländer www.fes.de/international