AK Party aims to join Christian Democrat Group

Christian Democrats have doubts about Turkey’s membership to the European Union, while especially German Christian Democrats have been opposing possible membership of Turkey to the bloc.
If AK Party is accepted to membership of the Christian Democrats Group this might viewed as a green light to Turkey’s membership to the EU. This is why German Christian Democrats might prevent AK Party becoming a member of the group.
Turkey has long had the ambition to become a full-member to the EU. It has amended some articles of its Constitution as part of its efforts.

Ruling AK Party is one of the two political parties that were founded on the ashes of the defunct Virtue Party (FP). The Constitutional Court banned the party on charges of becoming a center of Islamist movements.
AK Party denies its Islamist roots and says that it is a conservative democrat party.