Denmark is becoming more pragmatic in its relations with Turkey

Turkish EU membership is a highly contested issue in the individual EU member states. This includes Denmark, as this FEUTURE Country Report by DIIS researchers Cecilie Felicia Stokholm Banke and Jakob Lindgaard shows.

While some enthusiasm was expressed for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and the first Justice and Development Party (AKP) government when it was installed in 2002, this positive attitude has changed during recent years. The Danish position towards Turkey is at present even more ambivalent and divided between wanting Turkey as a close ally and business partner, and worrying that Turkey might not only fail to meet the Copenhagen criteria as defined by the European Council in 1993, but also develop into a far more critical direction politically.