Also technically Turkey is an EU candidate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Turkey_to_the_European_Union
Though they kinda stopped being a real candidate 10+ years ago.
But 20 years ago, Turkey was the most prominent EU candidate and could eventually legitimately join the EU. Greece was one of the biggest proponents of Turkey joining the EU. Turkey was led by a promising young man, a moderate muslim, who could compromise islam with secularism. His name was Erdogan.
This seems a rather generous characterisation. He might have been more sensible in his economics earlier on, but he has always been a hardcore Islamist. Before he got into national politics was imprisoned during his term as Istanbul’s Mayor for “inciting racial hatred”, and his party deregistered for being too extreme in its opposition to secularism.
Yes but before Erdogan, the military was in charge of Turkey. So saying that the military favoured government didnt approve Erdogan was not proof that Erdogan was an actual radical, maybe it was just internal turkish politics. At least that’s how it was perceived by the outsiders.
Turkey had nominally a democracy but if the military didnt approve the elected government, they would just coup it. But since being an actual democracy, with the government in charge of the military, is a requirement for joining the EU, Turkey was forced to become more democratic. Unfortunately the people of Turkey wanted a more islamic and less secular government, so thats what they elected.
Which in turn weakened the military’s influence, increased Erdogan’s power(since he was the elected leader) and led to the failed coup a decade later. The failed coup changed everything.
