Internationale Politikanalyse Europäische Politik, August 2006 http://www.fes.de/internationalepolitik Hatice Aslan Turkey and the EU – the inner-Turkish Debate. Conflicting Ideologies, Harmonization and Change Introduction In autumn 2003, Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan de­clared:“The European Union is our national goal”. Since Spring 2002, two extensive constitutional amendments and eight harmonization packages, which imply fundamental changes in domestic policy and throughout Turkish society, were enforced. Prior to the start of the EU accession negotiations in Octo­ber 2005 two thirds of the Turkish population sup­ported the country’s accession to the EU. Since then the rate dropped to 60%, but the consensus is still very high. Traditionally, Turkish reform projects were geared toward Europe’s development. This alone, however, can neither sufficiently explain the high sup­port for EU membership among the public nor the speed and scope of legal reforms undertaken by the government. Both must be seen also against the back­drop of three important events in recent years. • First, when Turkey was given the formal candidate status by the European Council at the Helsinki Summit of 1999, the EU’s credibility improved sig­nificantly regarding its willingness to accept Turkey as a member state. • Second, Turkey’s financial and economic crisis of 2000/2001, the latest one in a series of crises during the past two decades, triggered a wave of bank­ruptcies and massive job losses affecting all seg­ments of society. Thereafter, the prospect of mate­rial benefits through EU membership seemed in­creasingly attractive. • And third, the war in Iraq brought about a down­turn in the traditionally tight strategic relationship with the US. Consequently, a stronger bond with the EU appeared in a more favorable light(Önis, 2004: 5-7). • These facts alone, however, cannot sufficiently ex­plain the countrywide EU enthusiasm in Turkey. It is even surprising given Turkey’s crisis-ridden economic and political past and also, that the driving force behind this reform process is a government with Islamic roots. This paper examines the Turkish people’s motivation more in greater depth by reflecting the pros and cons that various stakeholders expect from an EU accession. It also evaluates the chances that particular expecta­tions will naturalize. This will make it possible to iden­tify the potential“losers” and“winners” of EU acces­sion among the Turkish population. Part I of this paper deals with the far-reaching ef­fects of the EU-harmonization process on Turkey. Es­sentially it is a prefixed summary of the results of the subsequent parts of the paper. It draws up a balance sheet of the entire society by dividing the different in­terest groups into“winners” and“losers” of an EU accession. Part II reveals four core conflict areas in the dispute over Turkey’s EU membership where the stakes for Turkey seem to be particularly high. Parts III, IV and V are an analysis of the positive and negative expecta­tions of a full EU membership from the point of view of select groups of Turkey’s economic, social and po­litical spheres. Each part concludes with an examina­tion of how realistic those expectations are under the conditions of the EU accession criteria. I) Economic and Political Effects of EU Accession NF=qÜÉ=`çéÉåÜ~ÖÉå=ÅêáíÉêá~=~ë=íÜÉ=ÑçìåÇ~íáçå=çÑ=br= ~ÅÅÉëëáçå On May 19, 2003 the European Council agreed on the principles, priorities, intermediate objectives and condi­tions as outlined in the revised Accession Partnership for Turkey. According to this, the accession process is