The European Union (EU) set out its aim to be a global power in 2003, with the announcement of the European Security Strategy, however, it was not until the 2016 EU Global Strategy that this goal was stressed more clearly and decisively. The comparison between these two strategies illustrates the change in the EU’s rhetoric and foreign policy. With the 2016 Strategy, the EU embarked on an effort to shape its own geopolitics, this time, much freer from the US domination, focusing specifically on the migration crisis and the recent security threats in Europe. This paper aims to concentrate on the status of Turkey in EU foreign policy and elaborate on the intensification of the EU’s focus on Turkey, in its foreign policy, in the period 2016 - 2021. The paper argues that the EU limited emphasis on the role of Turkey to areas, such as migration, counterterrorism, and energy. Therefore, it is argued that this limited approach damages the cooperative understanding between the parties, especially regarding the candidacy process.