Can Turkey and the UK learn from each other’s EU strategies?

CER Bulletin (Centre for European Reform) Issue 88, February/March 2013

by Katinka Barysch *, 25 January 2013

David Cameron’s Conservative Party wants to renegotiate Britain’s membership of the EU, hoping to obtain a looser, more flexible relationship. Turkey may also soon ask for a new kind of ‘associate membership’. Although there are different, and deep-rooted reasons for euroscepticism in each country, Turkey and the UK have certain things in common: an imperial past, great power aspirations and an attachment to traditional notions of sovereignty, sometimes at odds with EU supra-nationalism. They also happen to be fed up with the EU. But the similarities stop there.

* Deputy director, CER

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