Publication
Framing conditionality in times of crisis: EU institutional responses to Turkey’s democratic decline (2014–2024)
In this article, Seda Gürkan, Özlem Atikcan and George Christou examine how EU institutions responded to Turkey’s democratic decline between 2014 and 2024, analysing how conditionality was framed and applied by the European Commission, European Parliament and European Council.
- Author
- Seda Gürkan
- Date
- 01 January 2026
- Links
- Read the full article here
This article investigates how the European Union has responded to democratic backsliding in Turkey over the past decade and how different EU institutions have framed and operationalised conditionality in this process. The study draws on a systematic frame analysis of official EU documents and around 7,000 coded statements from 2014 to 2024.
The findings show that EU institutions hold diverging views on Turkey, shaped by competing normative and strategic considerations. The European Parliament and the European Commission place strong emphasis on democratic standards, rule of law and human rights, while the European Council more often prioritises geopolitical, migration and security interests. Despite these differences, there is broad agreement across institutions on maintaining a dual approach: combining punitive conditionality with continued dialogue and cooperation with Turkey.
The article argues that these dynamics reflect an evolving hybrid model of EU engagement with Turkey. This model mixes enlargement policy instruments, such as political conditionality, with broader foreign policy tools and balances normative commitments with strategic interests. The EU’s response is therefore shaped both by Turkey’s domestic political developments and by wider geopolitical pressures, resulting in a pragmatic yet contested approach to dealing with a rapidly de-democratising candidate country.