should turkey join the european union

8/7/2019 Should Turkey Join the European Union

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Should Turkey Join theShould Turkey Join the

European Union?European Union?


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TurkeyTurkey--EU RelationsEU Relations

Turkeys relations with the European

Union (EU) date back to 1959 when

Turkey applied for associate membershipto the then European Economic

Community (EEC). It took 30 years until

Turkey was officially declared a candidate

country for final membership at the EUHelsinki Summit in December 1999.


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TurkeyEU relations has an important impact

not only on Turkey and the EU but also, on a far

larger scale. The future nature of this

relationship will help to shape the nature of therelations between the EU and its neighboring

Muslim countries. Both Turkey and the EU are

now at a crossroads where the course they plot

will have important implications and impact onworld politics in the post-9/11 era.


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The EU must decide whether it is aChristian club and that the clash ofcivilizations is inevitable, or that it is

based on certain norms (withrespect for human rights, democracyand superiority of rule of law as thestarting point) which, if fulfilled by a

European Country, determine itsmembership thus, it can be anexample of consensus of differentcivilizations.


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Turkey must decide whether it wants to be a fully democratic stateor remain a semi-democracy with the possibility to become amore Middle Eastern and more authoritarian state thus, failing tobe a model(*) of a democratic country with a Muslim populationfor the Central Asian and Middle Eastern states. It seems that the

steady reforms in Turkey since the early 2000s show that Turkeyhas already crossed the critical threshold and that a clear promiseof accession by the EU will help Turkey to maintain this criticalthreshold.

(*) Turkey was seen as the only secular democratic country with apredominantly Muslim population. In that regard, after the end of

the Cold War, lots of articles were written that suggested thatTurkey could be a model for the newly independent states ofCentral Asia and the Middle Eastern states which havepredominantly Muslim populations.


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1. Preliminary Stage: During this stage, which was to befrom 1964 to 1973, the EEC would give some directfinancial aid to Turkey and establish preferential tradeconditions with Turkey.

2. Transition Stage: This stage was to cover twenty-twoyears where the Community and Turkey wouldeliminate all tariffs and trade barriers in order to

establish a customs union between Turkey and theCommunity.

3. Final Stage: Should the necessary progress beobserved, the Community would examine thepossibility of Turkeys accession to the Community asa full member.

The main driving force behind the Turkish applicationfor the Associate Membership was mostly politicalrather than economic.


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In 1987 Turkey shocked the EC bysubmitting its official application for full

membership to the EC. This was a

premature application. However, theCommunity did not want to alienate

Turkey. Hence, the Commission prepared

its official Opinion and issued it in

December 1989. In essence, theCommissions Opinion was a polite rebuff

of the Turkish application.


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Customs Union: Catching the Train?

After the Commissions Opinion on the Turkish application, such external

factors as the end of the Cold War and the breakdown of the socialistregimes in Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe influenced theCommunitys vision for the future.

First, the Central and Eastern European states were gaining theirindependence, ridding themselves of socialist regimes and endorsingdemocratic parliamentary regimes and building market economies similar to

the Western European states. They saw their future within the biggersystem of European states hence, within the Community. Secondly, theCommunity was moving towards a political union in parallel with economicunion. The Maastricht treaty was transforming the Community into apolitical union where, in 1992, the Community changed its name from ECto EU. Thirdly, such values as respect for human rights, democracy,superiority of rule of law and protection of minorities were finding more andmore supporters and becoming more important in shaping the foreign

policies of the European states.

It was against this background that Community membership became moreand more important in Turkey. According to the Ankara Agreement, Turkeyshould have established a customs union with the Community by 1995.


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Although the customs union was a badly

negotiated deal for Turkey, it nonetheless

provided closer economic ties between Turkey

and the EU. For Prime Minister iller and many

Turks, the customs union symbolized Turkeys

future full membership of the EU. For the EU,

the customs union did not automatically mean

guaranteed future membership for Turkey. As a

matter of fact, the EU was very keen on

proceeding with the customs union through an

association relationship and the EU had never

provided a perspective of full membership to

Turkey during the customs union negotiations.


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After the Luxembourg Summit, EUTurkey relations deteriorated fortwo years until the EU Commission issued its 1999 RegularReport,where it recommended that Turkey be included as a candidatecountry in the enlargement process of the EU. However, theCommission did not set any definite date for the start of theaccession negotiations with Turkey. According to the 1999RegularReport:

Turkey continues to comply with most of its obligations under theCustoms Union. Additional efforts should be made in order to reach

full compliance with the acquis notably in the completion andcustoms fields. In most of the areas identified in the Europeanstrategy, alignment efforts have continued. The administrativecapacity to apply the acquis in the context of the Customs Unionremains very satisfactory. However, Turkey needs to furthermodernize its administrative structures and increase staff training.

According to the Commission, Turkey must fulfill the political criterialaid down by the Jun 1993 Copenhagen European Council Summitin order to start accession negotiations.

Now, Turkey is faced with the challenge of fulfilling the politicalCopenhagen criteria, which means that Turkey should establish afully democratic regime.


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1999 EU Helsinki1999 EU Helsinki SSummitummit

After the Helsinki Summit where Turkey wasdeclared as a candidate country, the EUCommission prepared the Accession

Partnership for Turkey (AP Turkey) on 8November 2000 where the EU put forward theconditions that Turkey has to satisfy in the shortrun (within one year) and in the medium run(within four years). In response to the APTurkey, Turkey prepared its National Programfor the Adoption of the Acquis on 19 March 2001where it committed to meeting the conditions inthe AP Turkey in the short and the medium run.


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Today, the criteria for EU membership are very clear. The EUestablished the necessary criteria for membership in theCopenhagen Summit in 1993:

Political Criteria: The candidate country has to achieve stabilityin its institutions, to guaranteeing democracy, the superiority ofrule of law, respect for human rights and respect for andprotection of minorities;

Economic Criteria: The candidate country has to have afunctioning market economy and the capacity to cope withcompetitive pressures and market forces within the Union;

Acquis Communautaire: The candidate country has to have thecapacity to approximate its administrative structures to theEuropean Community legislation, so that all the Community

legislation and provisions under the Community treaties areadopted by the candidate country. In addition, the candidatecountry should be able to take on the obligations of membership,such as adopting the aims of political, economic and monetaryunion of the Community.


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Start of the Accession NegotiationsStart of the Accession Negotiations

The intention of the EU to further the

accession negotiations with Turkey to be

finalized by accession based on the

decision of the EU Council on 17

December 2004 to start the accession

negotiations with Turkey on 3 October

2005 will probably be the most crucialmilestone in the TurkeyEU relations.


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Conclusion: The Future ofConclusion: The Future of

Turkeys EU ProcessTurkeys EU Process

As the analysis above shows, Turkey has takenenormous steps in democratization as a directresult of the Copenhagen political criteria since

the 1999 EU Helsinki summit, when Turkey wasofficially declared a candidate for EUmembership. It is obvious that this EUconditionality tool played a key role in the recenttransformations in democracy in Turkey.

Especially through the sixth, the seventh, theeighth EU Harmonization Packages and the newCivil Law, Turkey has not only fulfilled theCopenhagen political criteria on paper but has

proved it is committed to the EU process.


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Discussion Questions:

Given that the conditions, other than the

Copenhagen criteria, put forward toTurkey by the EU, should Turkey join the

EU?

What course of action should Turkey take

in its endevor to join the EU?

should turkey join the european union

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