THE EU CONDITIONALITY OF MINORITY PROTECTION AND ITS LIMITS -With Some Remarks on its Application to Turkey-

The Copenhagen political criteria have gained a wide interest among scholars in Turkey, as these conditions have been very crucial for Turkey’s accession to the European Union. One of these criteria is ‘respect for and protection of minority’. This paper tries to reveal the limits of the conditionality of minority protection as EU membership condition and it is accompanied with some observations on the application of this condition to Turkey. In this respect, it is explored in the first place that under what kind of historical and political circumstances the conditionality was formulated. Next, the rules that deal, mostly indirectly, with minority protection within the EU law are summarized. Following this summary, an account on the limits of conditionality of minority protection is presented. After all, some remarks, as reflected in the Regular Progress Reports issued on Turkey, on the application of the conditionality of minority protection to Turkey are made.