The Turkish perspective on the European integration: ideological and social motivations of non-integration

The Republic of Türkiye is the state that has the longest EU candidature,due to several events and policies that led to the prolongation of the process. Thecountry’s internal and implicitly external profile have faced significant changes fromthe 1923 moment when the Republic of Türkiye was founded, having a great impacton the Turkish society. We shall focus our attention on the ideological dimension,i.e. extendedly the set of ideas – social, cultural and political – that motivate Turks’non-integration. These aspects are related to: doctrines, identity, religion, politicalideology. The main objective of this paper is to present and analyse some of the mostimportant ideological motivations from the Turkish perspective regarding theEuropean integration. We shall, therefore, present not only why Türkiye is not amember state, but also and most importantly, the way in which the motivations arerooted in the Turkish perception.