European Identity: The Turkish quest for EU membership within the context of Europe’s competing narratives

Abstract: The relationship between Turkey and the EU is one that stands out as specifically unique due to a decades-long controversy about what constitutes European identity in relation to Turkey’s bid for EU membership. This long-standing debate about Turkey regards an identity based on two differing concepts of Modern Europe and Europe where Modern Europe is seen as the ‘inclusive’ and Europe is viewed as ‘exclusive’ -where a number of competing narratives continue to be debated in the European Parliament (EP). These revolve around Turkey’s potential EU membership. The goal of this research is to more closely examine the competing narratives within the European Parliament that span a period of almost twenty years from 1999 to 2018. These narratives focus on how European Identity is defined and how Turkey’s potential EU membership is discussed within the context of this identity. The objective is to approach this topic through the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) in Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) as it relates to studying competing narratives that seek to refocus on European Identity in the context of Turkey. Poststructuralist theory will also be utilized to explain how European identity is constructed. Finally, through the diverse research presented, EU identity can be more easily discerned.