Relationship between EU and Turkey

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The relations between the Turkish Republic and European Institutions have such a long background. After the victory of the Turkish Independence War (1920-1923), revolutionaries led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk make series of reforms that modernized Turkey and moved it more towards European culture. After the World War II Turkey allied itself with the United States, taking part in the Marshall Plan in 1947, joining as a member state the Council of Europe , NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), OECD (Organization for economic Corporation and Development) and associated member state of WEU ( Western European Union). In July 1959, shortly after the creation of the European Economic Community in 1958, Turkey made its first application to join. The EEC's response to Turkey's application in 1959 was to suggest the establishment of an association until Turkey's circumstances permitted its accession. The ensuing negotiations resulted in the signature of the Agreement Creating an Association between the Republic of Turkey and the European Economic Community (the "Ankara Agreement") on 12 September 1963. This agreement, aimed at securing Turkey's full membership in the EEC through the establishment in three phases of a customs union which would serve as an instrument to bring about integration between the EEC and Turkey. This process has gone on up to now.

Problem Fields

After starting the negotiations between Turkey and EU, Turkey’s membership became one of the important and controversial issues in both Turkish and European public opinions. It is true that Turkey’s membership is more different than the previous enlargements of the EU due to following reasons. When being considered the ‘sui generis’ features of Turkey, there are plenty of reasons which made this integration process very difficult.



The Size of Turkey

Compared with the EU members with the 779.452 square kilometres area –the largest country in Europe-and having approximately 73 million populations Turkey is the second largest country after Germany in size. And by passing Germany it is approximated that by the year of 2023 Turkey will become the most populous country in Europe. Because of this relatively huge population there are many problematic areas of Turkey’s membership. First of all as it is known that there are many criteria “acquis communataire”, which must be adapted from EU to national level, for being a full member of the union. Therefore it is very hard job to adapt the whole economic system, legal order, and social structure. For instance looking at the last new twelve members joining the EU, besides Poland and Romania, even Istanbul, the largest city of Turkey, is larger than the other ten new members.

Secondly regarding population the representation of Turkey in EU institutions will be another problem, when Turkey becomes a member of EU. Since the population is the main criteria in representation of the EU institutions such as EU Commission and European Council and EU Parliament, Turkey will be the one of the dominant powers in the decision making process. Moreover like adapting ‘acquais communataire’, adapting Turkey to the EU institutions will prove difficult. Even now the there is a controversy between big members and the small ones. For instance Germany, the biggest EU state, claims that the big members deserve more voting power than the small states in order to establish a fair system. Whereas the small members do not want the big states very dominant in the EU system. As a result of this in the Nice Treaty the voting system was made very complicated in order to balance these two different aspects. However this time the EU faced another big issue called the complexity of the decision making process. Therefore when the first constitution and its successor the Reform Treaty were prepared, the simplification of the decision making process was the one of the main purposes.

Political Problems
Another problematic field of Turkey’s accession is the political disputes between some EU states and Turkey about certain issues. Obviously it might be said that Cyprus is the major problem of the integration process. As it is known Republic of Cyprus is now one of the member states of EU. However because Turkey does not accept ‘Southern Cyprus’ as a representative of the whole island, it does not have diplomatic relations with “Cyprus”. Therefore there is not any direct relationship between these two countries. The EU calls for Turkey to recognise Cyprus . Whereas Turkey declares that unless the Cyprus conflict is solved, it will not recognise Cyprus and it will not have any commercial, political relation with Cyprus directly. It seems impossible that Turkey will not be member unless this issue is somehow solved or does recognise Cyprus. However it seems very difficult to solve due to the parties’ different positions. There is also a problem between Greece and Turkey about the sovereignty of the continental shelf in Aegean Sea. Since most of the islands even those very near to the Turkish Coasts are under the sovereignty of Greece, Greece claims continental broad shelf rights in Aegean Sea according to the Geneva Convention (1958). In contrast Turkey claims that if both the Geneva Convention and the decision made by International Justice Court about the issue of The North Sea continental shelf are considered, it will be seen that those islands are the natural extension of the Anatolian Peninsula, the mainland of Turkey. Due to this reason those islands, under sovereignty of Greece, do not have continental shelf itself. Since these two countries have very different arguments about this issue, lack of confidence with each other and some other problems coming from history, this problem starting the early years of 1970’s has not been solved yet. During 1980’s and 90’s the relationship between parties has become strained from time to time. After the crisis of the Kardak Rocks, islets in Aegean Sea, in 1996; Turkey declared that if Greece tries to extend its continental shelf from 6 miles to 12 miles, Turkey will consider this attempt that as proclamation of war against itself, which is called “casus belli” in the international law.

Prejudices of Public Opinions in |Europe and Turkey

Apart from all these problems in the governmental level, there are also fears, misconceptions, prejudices and concerns in the public level both in |European public opinion and Turkish public opinion.

Having looked at the European public opinion generally, there are some concerns based on different reasons. Firstly many people think that with a highly populated young generation there will be a unemployment problem thought the European market. Since Turkish citizens have right to go the EU countries without a visa and have right to work within the context of the ‘free movement of labourers’, it is concerned that there will be a big migration wave from Turkey into EU countries .However as I stated before the negotiation process will last fifteen to twenty years. Therefore since the Turkish economy will be much stronger than now this tendency will probably decrease. Moreover having looked a the accession of the Poland after the membership some temporary provisions which restrict the polish labourers entering the EU market freely was accepted in order to protect previous EU economies. Therefore similar precautions might be applied or will probably be applied in the Turkey’s accession.

Secondly many people in Europe think that Turkey comes from totally different cultural and religious background, so it does not belong to Europe. Since throughout the history Turks have been considered as a enemy and “others” for Europeans. Therefore in particular in the public level there is a prejudice and misconception to Turkey. For instance, when being mentioned about the Turkey’s membership, some people refer the ‘Second Siege of Vienna (1683)’ which Ottoman Empire had been stopped lastly. In addition there are some suspects in the Turkish public opinion. Some people think that after the accession of the EU, Turkey will lost its sovereignty and will be divided into parts. Therefore they resist the membership process.

To conclude Turkey’s membership process is such a long story. And it can be clearly seen that this story will not be a short one. Due to problems which I tried to illustrate above, even though Turkey and EU countries have strong relationships between each other, it is still unclear whether this story will have a happy end or not.