IMMIGRATION AND ELECTION IN LEADER RHETORIC: TURKEY-EUROPEAN UNION RELATIONS (2014-2016)

In this study, Turkey-EU relations were examined through the discourses of German government president Angela Merkel and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2014 and 2015. With the Visa Exemption and Readmission Agreement signed during the period when the civil war in Syria increased migration movements, a new process began at the beginning of 2014 in Turkey-EU relations, which had been stagnant for a long time. In the same years, local elections, presidential elections, 7 June and 1 November general elections took place in Turkey. In the process led by Merkel, Erdogan's visits to Germany and Merkel's visit to Turkey have gained importance.   In this research, discourses were identified by daily archival search from the news sites determined and in this direction, what kind of change occurred in the discourses of the leaders in the axis of relations and what effect these discourses had on the future of Turkey-EU relations were evaluated by the method of critical discourse analysis. In this direction, following the introductory section, the discourses of Erdoğan and Merkel in 2014 and 2015 are examined in quarterly periods. Then, the emphasis in the discourses was analyzed through the tables and the conclusion section ended with the evaluation of the findings.