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In this Carnegie paper, EDAM chairman and Carnegie Europe visiting scholar Sinan Ulgen argues for Turkey’s virtual EU membership. He notes that “Turkey’s prospects of becoming a member of the European Union (EU) are now more uncertain than ever. Having been forced to spend their residual political capital on passing unpopular austerity packages to combat the eurozone crisis, European leaders have little enthusiasm for championing an equally unpopular proposition like EU enlargement.. But the longer the negotiations process remains stalled, the more acrimony is being injected into the Turkey-EU relationship, poisoning relations in many domains “. He therefore proposes a virtual membership framework for Turkey as a complement to the accession process. The virtual membership would cover such domains as trade, climate change, mobility, foreign and security policy.
