Turkey's pre-negotiation for EU membership - A case study of asymmetric negotiation

Sammanfattning: This is a study about Turkey's membership negotiation to the European Union. The study focuses on the pre-negotiation phase between the EU and Turkey, and investigates if any asymmetry has influenced the negotiation and how that has occurred. Turkey over almost twenty years has had its eyes on the European Union, longing to become a member. The European Union has ambivalently been carefully positive asking Turkey to speed up their democratization process. Since the end of the nineteen nineties, Turkey has strived to do the necessary changes in order to become a member, giving concessions on mainly two areas: decrease of military influence in society and human rights, in order to speed up the accession into the union. The European Union, thanks to its asymmetrical power position, has been able to influence changes in the Turkish constitutional and legal framework.