Türkiye in the European Political/Economic Project

The image of Europe as a political/economic project is discursively constructed through the representation of Türkiye as being indispensable for the European political/economic project and the representation of Türkiye as being incompatible with this project. Concerning the representation of Türkiye as being indispensable for the European political/economic project, a binary construction between the EU and Türkiye is established because of different demographic structures, although this difference is used to complement Europe for economic gains through the topoi of “pro bono publico” and reality. Within the representation of Türkiye being incompatible with this project, there are two other subimages of Türkiye: the representation of Türkiye as an economic burden on the EU budget and the representation of Türkiye only within economic and trade relations, excluding its political integration into the EU. The discursive construction of Türkiye as an economic burden on the EU budget is composed through the topoi of comparison, threat, finance, and burden. Regarding the image of Türkiye only within economic and trade relations, excluding its political integration into the EU, different forms of mitigation strategies, such as the “apparent denials” and the direct micro-mitigations against the illocutionary force of the criticism are prominent.