Teaching EU Law in Turkey

As a candidate country in Customs Union with the EU, Turkey has to harmonise its legislation, judicial and administrative practices with the EU acquis. This necessity brings fundamental changes and affects all layers of society, including public and private institutions, not only politically but also economically and socially. Accepting the EU acquis also requires human resources with sufficient experience and knowledge in the EU. However teaching the EU is a complete challenge with its unique institutional structure, complexity of its policy areas, fast-changing legislation and case-law. Besides, Turkey's relations with the EU is full of ups and downs. Despite this, EU law is still taught at the leading universities in Turkey as a selective course. In the first part of my presentation, I will explain how EU-Turkey Relations has an impact on teaching EU law and other EU-related subjects in Turkey. In the second part, I will focus on choosing the right methodology to teach EU law under so many distracting factors, such as, lack of motivation, insufficient resources and other political, social, and economic problems. In the last part I will have some concluding remarks and suggestions especially in times of Covid-19 pandemic. My presentation will mainly be based on the book-chapter I wrote under the title “Teaching EU Law in Difficult Times in Turkey” (in Visvizi, A., Field, M., Pachocka, M. (eds) (2021) Teaching the EU: Fostering Knowledge and Understanding in the Brexit Age, Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing, ISBN: 9781800432758, 2020) with and updated information on the developments in EU-Turkey relations.