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A new step is about to be taken in the long and ambiguous Turkish-European relationship, which in principle should lead to Turkey becoming a member of the European Union in the medium term. This paper puts this process in perspective. We first trace the history of Turkish-European relations, presenting the terms of the Founding Agreement of the Association of 1963, those of the Customs Union of 1995, the acceleration of the process of enlargement decided upon in December 1999 by the European Council in Helsinki, and finally the evolution of the process over the past five years, which constitute a new era in Turkish-European relations. We then propose a framework that permits us to make explicit the issues from the Turkish as well as the European point of view.