The European Future of Turkey and Ukraine

The project was a joint initiative of four policy centers of the Policy Association for an Open Society (PASOS), dealing with Polish, Czech, Slovak and Hungarian policy debates on, and attitudes to, future or potential further rounds of enlargement to include Turkey and Ukraine in the EU.

In light of the EU decision to open accession negotiations with Turkey and efforts to offer a European perspective to Ukraine, relations with these countries represent a key question for the future of European integration. While the issue of further enlargements is hotly debated in some older EU countries, the gulf between an elite-driven European policy agenda on the one hand and the public discourse on the other is ever widening in some others. This study analyzed perceptions of the desirability and feasibility of further enlargements to Turkey and Ukraine in four of the new member states from a comparative perspective.

The project intended to meet following objectives:

• to map the state of current expert and public debates in the four countries so as to identify the prevailing social attitudes on the questions of both the desirability and feasibility of further enlargements to include Turkey and Ukraine in the EU;
• to shape the civil society agenda in all four countries by informing the new Europe debate and raising the profile and common voice of independent policy institutes on this issue;
• to identify possible opposition to enlargement to Ukraine and Turkey, and assess the relevance and weight of arguments for and against their EU accession in each national debate;
• to address public concerns by presenting the relevant facts on issues such as civilizational and historical differences, financial costs, shift in political balance, "democratic deficit" and human rights concerns.