EU–Türkiye relations are entering a new phase defined by constrained pragmatism rather than political ambition. Russia’s war in Ukraine, instability across the Middle East, and the uncertainty surrounding Donald Trump’s return to the White House have shifted Europe’s priorities sharply toward security, migration management, and strategic resilience. Against this backdrop, the European Commission’s Türkiye 2025 Report and IstanPol’s fieldwork in Brussels (September 2025) reveal a relationship sustained by necessity, yet lacking a shared strategic horizon.

(You can read the executive summary of the report below. Click here to access the full report in pdf)

Interviews with EU policymakers, diplomats, analysts, and civil-society representatives in Brussels point to a broad but quiet consensus: cooperation with Türkiye is indispensable, particularly in security, energy, trade, and migration, but democratic backsliding has hollowed out the accession framework and removed the normative anchor that once guided engagement. Fragmentation within the EU—among the Commission, EEAS, European Parliament, and key member states—further complicates policy coherence, while the Cyprus dispute continues to block high-level political and defence-industrial tracks. What remains is a transactional mode of cooperation shaped by “interdependence without integration.”

Nevertheless, avenues for calibrated progress exist. Brussels continues to regard Türkiye as a pivotal regional actor—central to Black Sea security, NATO deterrence, Syria and Gaza diplomacy, and mediation with Russia—making a complete political disengagement unlikely. Economic and technological domains, such as Customs Union modernization, energy diversification, digital alignment, and reconstruction partnerships, offer realistic opportunities for functional re-engagement if sequenced strategically.

The policy implications are two-sided. For the EU, a more coherent approach is needed—recognizing the strategic cost of exclusion, prioritizing Customs Union reform, and applying conditionality in a phased and realistic manner. For Türkiye, even modest steps to halt democratic erosion, improve rule-of-law compliance, and build confidence on Cyprus would have a disproportionate impact on political dialogue and trust. Both sides would benefit from rebuilding institutional and societal channels through low-politics cooperation in energy, reconstruction, academic exchange, and civil-society dialogue.

The report concludes that the most plausible trajectory for 2025–2030 is “managed pragmatism”: functional cooperation where necessary, political distance where unavoidable. Alternative scenarios like strategic re-engagement or gradual decoupling remain possible but require significant domestic or geopolitical triggers. Below are the key findings that underpin this assessment:

• The relationship is driven by strategic necessity rather than shared vision: Security cooperation, migration management, and deep economic interdependence sustain engagement, yet no credible political horizon exists and the accession framework is substantively hollow.

• Democratic backsliding has eroded the foundations for meaningful political dialogue: The 2025 Commission Report identifies a pattern of entrenched democratic regression—rooted in the hyper-centralized presidential system, politicized judiciary, non-implementation of ECtHR and Constitutional Court rulings, shrinking civic space, and recurrent pressure on opposition actors. This erosion has eliminated the “positive political narrative” that once accompanied Türkiye’s candidacy, paralyzed the accession framework, and narrowed EU political engagement to a predominantly transactional sphere.

• Brussels assesses domestic political actors primarily as indicators of institutional decay rather than drivers of imminent change: Interviewees closely monitor the opposition—including CHP’s 2024 gains and the broader crackdown against the party, including the detention of Istanbul mayor Ekrem İmamoğlu—but largely as indicators of institutional decay rather than as drivers of imminent political change, given the structural limits imposed by selective prosecutions, uneven competition, and shrinking civic space. These dynamics shape expectations: while opposition parties are seen as credible interlocutors but many interlocutors doubt whether, under current conditions, they can by themselves substantially reshape EU–Türkiye relations or reactivating the accession framework.

• Fragmentation across EU institutions and member states undermines coherence and produces uneven, sometimes contradictory policy signals: Divergent priorities between the Commission, EEAS, European Parliament, and national capitals—some emphasizing strategic pragmatism and sectoral cooperation, others insisting on rule-of-law conditionality—result in inconsistent approaches to sanctions alignment, defense-industrial cooperation (including debates on Türkiye’s participation in SAFE), export controls, and migration management. Even when member states share similar diagnoses of democratic deterioration, they differ on instruments, pressure, and sequencing, reinforcing a shift toward functional engagement without a unified strategic or normative framework.

• The Cyprus dispute remains the central structural obstacle: Greek and Cypriot vetoes freeze progress on political dialogue, defense-industrial participation, and several technical files. Confidence-building steps on the island—such as technical cooperation or joint economic initiatives—are viewed as necessary for any strategic breakthrough.

• Türkiye is viewed as strategically indispensable for Europe’s security architecture, and its exclusion from defence-industrial initiatives is increasingly seen as counterproductive: Interviewees emphasized Ankara’s pivotal role in Black Sea security, the grain corridor, demining, NATO deterrence, and diplomacy in Syria, Gaza, and Russia—areas where cooperation is expected to continue regardless of political tensions. Against this backdrop, several interlocutors, particularly from Germany and Italy, warned that sidelining Türkiye from SAFE and related defence-industrial frameworks undermines Europe’s strategic depth and supply-chain resilience, suggesting differentiated integration as a pragmatic corrective.

• Migration continues to anchor cooperation despite political strain: The 2016 EU–Türkiye Statement remains central to Europe’s external migration architecture, reinforcing interdependence even as trust erodes.

• Economic and technological cooperation offers the most realistic track for progress: Modernizing the Customs Union, expanding energy cooperation, enabling digital alignment, and coordinating reconstruction efforts (notably in Ukraine) are seen as mutually beneficial domains where phased conditionality can work.

• A deep trust deficit reinforces “managed pragmatism” as the most likely scenario for 2025–2030, limiting even pragmatic engagement and blocking structural alignment: With communication channels thinning, political ownership weak on both sides, and high-level contact reduced to transactional exchanges, the relationship is set to remain locked in managed pragmatism. Cooperation will continue only in indispensable areas—security, migration, and trade—while any meaningful political reset will require renewed trust-building efforts, credible rule-of-law steps, and the expansion of low-politics platforms that can sustain engagement over time.

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This policy report was prepared within the framework of the SOS4Democracy project, which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 101119678.