A special relationship under strain: Turkey and the EEC 1963-1976

As a member of the Western security community through the OECE and NATO, Turkey became the second country to establish political links with the EEC signing an association treaty in 1963. Five years later its economy was still not in a position to deal with European competition and doubts about the viability of the association were widespread. Drawing on a wide variety of national (British, French, Italian) and EU archival resources according with the ‘supranational’ approach to European integration history, the article provides an account of how during the 1970s, under the effect of the international recession and of economic and social problems, the enlargement and deepening of European integration ruined Turkey's position as a privileged partner, in spite of the Protocol signed in 1970 opening the path to the future adhesion. The Nine balked at extending economic privileges and even stepped back from commitments already taken, showing contrasting national positions, that did not allow the Commission to play a leading role. Politics and economics clashed in the EEC-Turkey relationship and the Nine appeared to be increasingly unable to conceptualize the relationship in positive terms: as Turkey appeared to be politically unstable and its economic situation deteriorated, EEC economic resources were not used to assist a politically relevant partner. In the meantime, Greece’s return to democracy and application to join the Community, the launching of the Mediterranean policy due to protect European energy supplies and the attempt of the Community to play a role in the North-South dialogue left Turkey on the side. This article offers a documented account and historical explanation of a crucial evolution in a still opened and much debated EU external issue. It contributes to the understanding of a currently much studied period of EEC history, namely the 1970s. This article, first drafted as a contribution to a conference on The South-European crisis of the 1970s held at the University of Padua, is the logical continuation of the essay “Stratégie de développement, option identitaire: la Turquie et l'Europe occidentale, de l'aide multilatérale à l'association à la CEE”, in Marta Petricioli (ed.), Mediterranean Europe, L’Europe méditerranéenne (Peter Lang, 2008).