Euroscepticism in Turkey: Parties, Elites, and Public Opinion

After reviewing the emergence of Turkish euroscepticism in the context of the evolution of Turkey-European-Union relations between 1963 and 1999, the paper analyses party and popular euroscepticism after 1999. The Turkish case appears to confirm the Taggart-Sitter thesis concerning the strategic euroscepticism of opposition parties. The exception of the Kurdish nationalists suggests that strategic euroscepticism does not apply to ethnic minority parties. In Turkey there is both 'soft' euroscepticism (centre-left parties) and 'hard' euroscepticism (nationalist and Islamist parties), the latter usually based on identity. At the popular level, identity euroscepticism revolves around four key issues: national sovereignty; morality; negative discrimination; and Europe's alleged hidden agenda to divide and rule Turkey (the so-called 'Sevres Syndrome').