Turkey’s multi-decade bid for EU accession has put the willingness of the EU to accept new member states from a different cultural and religious background to the test. The so-called Kopenhagen criteria had given as the only preconditions for EU membership stable institutions securing the principles of liberal democracy and the rule of law, a functioning market economy and the adoption of the EU’s entire aquis communitaire. This notwithstanding, Turkey’s negotiations with the European Union have been compared to, among other things, the labours of Sisyphus (Çakır 2011, p. 113) and a “tortuous, multifaceted love-hate relationship” (Reiners and Turhan 2021, pp. 1–2). Observers, in particular in the “Muslim world”, have wondered whether the reluctance to accept Turkey as a member state was based on Turkey’s Muslim character and went as far as accusing the European Union to act as a “Christian club”.