THE EUROPEAN-TURKISH RELATIONS AS SEEN FROM GERMAN PERSPETIVE

Year 2005, Volume: 13 Issue: 1&2, 217 - 239, 28.12.2005

Udo Witzens

https://doi.org/10.29228/mjes.217

Abstract

 Germany has always been one of the most important supporters of
Turkish membership in the European community. When on the summit of
December 11h 2004 German administration insisted on a date for accession
negotiations to begin in 2005 it acted in continuity of traditional German
politics since EU option for full membership was opened to Turkey in the
Treaty of Ankara by German EEC President Prof Walter Hallstein in 1963
However, today there are some voices against EU entry of Turkey
mainly in the rows of the conservative German parties CDU/CSU, whose
opposition is mainly motivated by Inner politics on the eve of General
elections. These reservations are ideologically backed by some German
historians who try to question the EU compatibility of Turkey because of
geographical, historical, and cultural reasons. But a brief analysis reveals
the traditional stereotypes and culturalistic prejudices of western
historiography behind those arguments. 

Keywords

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THE EUROPEAN-TURKISH RELATIONS AS SEEN FROM GERMAN PERSPETIVE

Abstract

 Germany has always been one of the most important supporters of Turkish membership in the European community. When on the summit of December 11h 2004 German administration insisted on a date for accession negotiations to begin in 2005 it acted in continuity of traditional German politics since EU option for full membership was opened to Turkey in the Treaty of Ankara by German EEC President Prof Walter Hallstein in 1963 However, today there are some voices against EU entry of Turkey mainly in the rows of the conservative German parties CDU/CSU, whose opposition is mainly motivated by Inner politics on the eve of General elections. These reservations are ideologically backed by some German historians who try to question the EU compatibility of Turkey because of geographical, historical, and cultural reasons. But a brief analysis reveals the traditional stereotypes and culturalistic prejudices of western historiography behind those arguments. 

Keywords

EUROPEAN, TURKISH, RELATIONS

References

• Dietrich von Kyaw, Grenzen der Erweiterung (,Internationale Politik", Nr. 3/2003, S. 53) As Dietrich von Kyaw, who was EU-representative of Germany in Brussels till 1999, comments: ,This means a committing and quite consciously made obligation of an EEC that was directed to the aim of progressing integration from the beginning." (ibid.)
• Murat T. Y6R0NG a. o., From Candicacy to Negotiations: Amendments in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, In: Marmara Journal of European Studies, Vol. 12, No. 1-2,2004, S. 99f