Turkey has repeatedly drawn the ire of EU chiefs in recent months due to a crackdown on freedom of speech as well as a series of controversial campaign events in member states.
And their accession talks were taken off the table after European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker hit out at Turkey and its president Recep Tayyip Erdogan last month.
But now Poland, already a maverick state due to its own war of words with the EU, has given full support to Turkey.
President Andrzej Duda said Poland “has supported and is supporting the accession of Turkey to the European Union”.
After meeting President Erdogan yesterday President Duda added: “I hope that the Turkish path as well as that of the EU will always go in the same direction and that at the end there will be a full membership of Turkey in the European Union.”
In reply President Erdogan called his counterpart “my friend” and called on the EU to offer an equally clear declaration.
He said: “Simply stop deceiving us. If you want to accept us in the Union, just say that.
“If you don’t want us, say that too.”
Mr Juncker said that and more beside during a fiery state of the European Union speech last month.
The European Commission president said Turkey was “moving away from the European Union in leaps and bounds”.
During his State of the Union address last month, he said: “Journalists belong in editorial offices amid heated debate, and not in prison. I appeal today to the powers that be in Turkey: Let our journalists go. And not just our journalists.”
He called for an improvement in democratic processes in Turkey, who he said was “pulling up the drawbridge”.
Mr Juncker said: “Europe is a continent of mature democracy, those who knowingly offend pull up the drawbridge and sometimes I have the impression that there are those in Turkey who want to pull up the drawbridge and later blame the European Union for the failure of accession negotiations.
“From our side, there will always be an outstretched hand, outstretched to the great people of Turkey and to all those who are willing to work with us on the basis of our shared values.”
Hundreds of journalists, professors, teachers and police officers remain in custody in Turkey following last year’s failed military coup.
Newspapers, universities and even schools have been shut down in a huge crackdown against perceived enemies of the state.
And a series of presidential election campaign events this year saw confrontational scenes in Germany and the Netherlands as President Erdogan’s supporters held huge rallies.