Turkey was also (briefly) a functioning democracy but it also never had a "realistic" path to membership, even though it was one of the older member candidates.

Turkey was also (briefly) a functioning democracy but it also never had a "realistic" path to membership, even though it was one of the older member candidates. Turkey still is a democracy on paper, and no one knows what will happen once Erdogan dies -- it's not impossible Turkey can become a functioning democracy again, but it's not clear to me if EU would be enthusiastic to re-start membership conversations with them. I think it makes sense that EU would want to see the country maintaining peace and prosperity for a while until they're more serious about membership. This is why the recent Ukraine membership deal will not work out any time soon, it's a long game.