The paper aims to evaluate the relations between the EU and Turkey from the perspective of export of governance. The main focus will be on the first five years of the accession process which continued on the basis of a problematic accession framework and wavering of political will to integrate Turkey as a member state (i.e. Mr. Sarkozy and Ms. Merkel''s statements). The paper will discuss the preparations for membership on the part of Turkey and the level of adoption of the EU acquis despite the suspension of eight chapters by the European Council and further blockages by several Member States. The article will evaluate and analyze the transformative power of the EU on Turkey by way of the accession process and pose the following question: If the paper arrives at the conclusion that the EU had a considerable transformative power on Turkey and Turkey adopted European norms of governance with respect to standards of democracy, human rights as well as policy areas such as the customs union, how can we explain the questioning of Turkey''s Europeanness by some circles in Europe? Are the borders of Europe concomitant with the borders of European governance? If not, how is it possible to have transformative power through exclusionary discourse? The paper will aim at addressing such questions with a view to shedding some insight into the case of Turkey and the transformative power of the EU.
