Just curious Kurt, is Turkey doing this out of economic interests or religion? A lot of Western news that I've read have Turkey leaning more towards Islam (that may or may not be radical). My sister and her husband visited Turkey one time from a cruise ship and they love it. It's a very beautiful country and they were very surprised how open it is. It is a very metropolitan country. For that reason I can't see how Turkey would be more conservative if it's leaning towards a more Islamic way of life. Sorry if I come out seeming like anti-Islam or anything, I am NOT, I want to clarify that.
The ruling AKP is under the leadership of Erdogan. When initially seizing power, the EU membership aspirations were used to get rid of the existing undemocratic influences entrenched in the military and bureaucracy. The replacement of these influences by AKP conform figures turned out no less undemocratic. Being member of the right party counted more than any professional qualifications. The EU has already their share of problematic members such as Romania, Greece, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Taking in Turkey would have posed major problems. It remains clear that the AKP politics are an unsustainable course that leads into a crash and Turkey is a very large country.
Within Europe, the popular opinion is divided, there's a kind of wide-spread Euro-nationalism that considers Turkey(90%Asia) and Russia(with all that Asian territory) un-European countries and the Ukraine a borderline case. In some European countries they have a majority, in others they are slightly less than half the population. For both, Russia and Turkey, EU membership would be a tough going.
The situation for Turkish EU membership did improve with all the bad press about the AKP corruption and the reception of the Gezi park protests. A non-AKP gouvernment of Turkey will have a much improved EU membership negotiation position. The problem boils down to AKP dictatorship/corruption/Islamism and is to a diminishing degree traceable to prejudices against Turks.
The reduction of prejudices against Turks in my opinion is related to the OECD research on education performance. Germany was quite shocked by the initial results and is still undergoing a major reform of the education system. One of the first issues tackled, was integrating more immigrant talent (such as 3rd generation Turks living in the country) into the elite schools of the three thier system. 20-25% Gymnasium (elite) 60% Realschule (normal) 15-20% Hauptschule (underperformers). This elite school system, the Gymnasium, has a very strong lobby by organized parents (with major influence on decision in the education system because parents with Gymnasium education reproduce that with their children at any cost). Integrating the many talents of migratory descent among the group of Gymnasium children and parents provides one of the steps for changing perception of Turks as one of us and not them. Contributing to that integration is the loss of Turkish grammar amaong Germany's Turks. This is little known to most non-Turkish speakers, but most German Turks have only one or none language with grammar and this is German. It's very difficult for them to express themselves with non-German sentences.
Another factor are politics, the environmentalist Green party outperforms all competitors in its capability to integrate immigrants into leading positions. Chem Özdemir of Turkish origin is one of the elected leaders of that party and Al Wazir of Arabic origin is currently co-ruler of one of the 16 federal states of Germany.
A third factor is soccer/football. Since the FIFA World Cup 2006 the Attitude of Germans towards showing their national colours was turned around 180°. Now during such events the landscape is full with the national colours (black, red, gold/yellow) and we have conflicts between extreme left wing groups and immigrants because immigrants are patriots showing proudly the flag of their adopted country, Germany, and the extreme left groups are still stuck in the pre-2006 mode of negating national pride and hidding national colours. It's quite bizarre that within a few years immigrants turn out proud German nationals, who invest a lot into showing the national symbol of the country they learned to love and German born left wing groups keep destroying these expressions, because they do not feel comfortable with any expression of national pride. And in the middle of these strange development stand figures such as Mesut Özil (the best German soccer player and of Turkish descendent, in a relationsship with the cousin of one of the most popular German born local pop stars) and many more.
Since the decade AKP took power in Turkey, attitudes towards Turks(synonym for immigrants) as nationals are turning around 180° from prior prejudices in Germany and the prejudices against Turkish EU membership are being transformed to a discussion of actual AKP policy problems from the previous "Christo-Judaic tradition of Europe with no historic presence of Islam"-credo. Strongest supporters of the Turkish EU aspirations are the moderately left-wing social democrats in Germany and Europe, while the opposition is entrenched in conservative right wing Euro-nationalism with religious overtures. The simils of the national-religious AKP in Europe do deny the AKP entrance into that club because they don't want a Muslim component.
I'm moderately left leaning as you can see. Depending on whom you talk too, the Turkish integration is either advocated via Istanbul and Izmir culture or rejected via Eastern Anatolia culture. A stable consensus has not yet been formed and negotiations are ongoing.
Erdogan seems most interested in staying indefinitely in power (an 8 year limit would benefit many European countries) and switches ideology as required for that ultimate goal. By turning the back towards Europe he is doing European integration of Turkey a great favour, because Erdogan and AKP get strongly associated with all the unwanted East Anatolian traditions and a change of power will inevitably happen.
From this perspective, Erdogans extreme un-NATO and un-EU behaviour is an instable course with the strongest economic interaction of Turkey remaining Europe and not China, Russia or the Middle East. A non-NATO supply of air defence missiles is probable to be put to an early end by the next non-AKP gouvernment of Turkey as these groups have increasing backing in Europe.
Sorry for the lengthy answer, I hope it answers the questions about Turkey as objective as I can.
The Turkish economy is as stable as Greece and Spain - Europe is waiting for the meltdown of their overblown tourism sector.
