The EU Policy of the Republican People's Party under Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: A New Wine in an Old Wine Cellar

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the determinants of the European Union (EU) policy of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition party in Turkey under the leadership of Kılıçdaroğlu. Critically discussing the role of party ideology concerning attitudes toward EU accession, the article examines whether the CHP's ideology changed after Kılıçdaroğlu and if so, how this ideological shift affected the party's euroskeptic stance. The article overall argues that the leadership change enabled the party to withdraw its nationalistic stance and embrace a social democratic rhetoric. However, the article contends that such transformation had little effect on its euroskepticism due to the persisting endogenous (the Justice and Development Party's authoritarianism) and exogenous factors (the EU's additional conditionality) that constrain the new CHP's EU-enthusiasm.