Principles versus Interests: Reactions of the Current Actors in Turkey to the EU’s Increasing FTAs with Third Countries

Sammanfattning: The EU has recently shifted its trade policy from multilateralism to bilateralism, and this has highly affected Turkey via the existing trade regime with the EU. The aim of this dissertation is to analyse the reactions of current actors in Turkey to the EU’s increasing FTAs with third countries in the EU-Turkey trade regime context. To do this, a theoretical framework has been established by using the neo-liberal institutionalist approach, and then a qualitative case study has been designed. Most of the data have been directly collected from several actors by using different methods. The collected data have been analysed with the help of the theoretical framework, and the main finding is that the current actors in Turkey who have an effect on the foreign trade policy demand to make a change within the EU-Turkey trade regime rather than to change the regime/to establish another alternative regime as a response to the EU’s increasing FTAs with third countries.