THE EFFECTS OF PAST MILITARY INTERVENTIONS IN TURKEY ON THE EUROPEAN UNION RELATIONS

Turkey has been in partnership with the European Union (EU) by the Ankara Agreement since 1964 and has aimed to become a full member since 1987. If it is considered that the membership process is still continuing today, the question of why this process has lasted so long is the first question that comes to mind in every environment where EU-Turkey relations are being questioned. Turkey fell behind some states even though they applied after Turkey, that’s why it is not enough to explain this delay by purely economic backwardness and / or religious differences. The occasional fluctuations in Turkey’s political order and deviations in democracy have always complicated the EU-Turkey relations. For this reason, the coups and / or coup attempts in Turkey’s domestic politics have been major problems that interrupted the political determination of both sides. The EU, which has always been cautious about the membership of Turkey to the Union, preferred to keep the distance between Turkey in general during the times of political instability because of the coups or coup attempts. Taking into account that these developments which have caused Turkey’s political instability have been ignored in the studies about EU-Turkey relations, so it is significant to analyze the effect of these issues to the Union membership. In this study, the coup attempt, which took place on July 15, 2016, and the past military interventions in the Turkish political life and their impact on the EU-Turkey relations will be examined and the study will try to reveal the effects of the results of the last coup attempt in Turkey regarding the future of the process of EU membership.