How "black" is the black sheep compared to all others? Turkey and the EU

In this paper we question the validity of the arguments against Turkey's membership of the EU and challenge the political wisdom of excluding Turkey from Europe. First, we argue that fundamental European values are not as uniform as they are made out to be. There are significant differences among the member states and the different European regions on basic values relating to religion and democracy. Second, we argue that many of Turkey's supposed cultural differences with the rest of Europe are in fact unsubstantiated. We support our arguments by analyzing widely available macroeconomic evidence and the data from the European Values Study, 1999 (EVS99).

Keywords: Turkey, EU, Institutions, Institutional Analysis, Values, EVS

JEL codes: A13, Z12, Z13