The tremendous political changes that have been taking place in the Middle East and North Africa have stressed the importance for the materialization
of the EU-Turkey Strategic dialogue. Turkey needs the EU for its economic modernization. On the other hand, Turkey’s political system seems attractive to many political forces in the Arab Spring countries and can be used as inspiration for their democratization process. The Strategic Dialogue, however, needs to become separated from Turkey’s EU accession negotiations. This article puts forward several concrete suggestions to increase the cooperation between the two sides.