Turkey and Europe: the crucial transition of the 1970s

The main aim of this paper is to examine the historical process of Turkey-EC/EU relations, and to underline the extent to which the changes that occurred in the 70s contributed to the genesis and evolution of some of the great “un-resolved questions” that characterise Turkish-European relations today. In particular the questions of “identity and evolution”, “geopolitics and strat-egy”, “religion” and fi nally “mutual perception”. The paper is a fi rst attempt towards a new historical reconstruction of Turkish-European relations that identifi es the 70s as an important moment of evolution and change, rather than of crisis and, as such as the key to interpretation of both the histori-cal and current relations. Accordingly, the paper’s analysis of the 50 year history of the complex relations between Turkey and Europe underlines the importance of rethinking the 70s historiographically. In this context, the 70s are of extraordinary interest, for it is in these years that the seeds of some of the principal transformations that have progressively changed the relations between Turkey and the EC/EU were sown.