Turkey's accession to the European Union: a two level game analogy

Abstract

The legitimacy crisis that the European Union (EU) is in today has become apparent in the aftermath of the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in mid 2005 by some member states. The longstanding lack of democratic accountability in the EU decision making mechanism is one of the major problems of the EU that has not yet been resolved. The current crisis and Turkey's accession bid, which has officially begun with 3 October decisions, are in a considerable level of interaction due to the fact that Turkey is one of the reference points of the EU publics and member state governments with respect to the legitimacy crisis of the Union. Turkey's membership to the EU will be subject to inter-state bargaining in the Intergovernmental Conferences during accession negotiations. The hesitation amongst government leaders regarding Turkey's prospective membership is evident and will shape EU decisions to a great extent in the forthcoming years. The European citizens' resistant attitudes matter very much in this sense, which seems to be very hard to be overcome.