HASAN HUSEYIN CEMALI TOPRAK

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HISTORY OF TURKEY - EU RELATIONS
HASAN HUSEYIN CEMALI TOPRAK
KAHRAMANMARAS SUTCU IMAM UNIVERSITY / TURKEY
Lecturer Prof. Janina Sawicka
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CONTENT

• Information About Republic of Turkey
• Ankara Agreement
• The Additional Protocol
• Turkeys Application for Full Membership in 1987
• The Customs Union
• The European Unions Enlargement Process and
  Turkey
• The Luxemburg European Council and The Following
  Period
• Turkey- EU Relations / Post-Helsinki Phase
• Accession Partnership, The National Program and
  Recent Progress
• Towards Accession
• Laeken European Council
• Convention on The Future of Europe
• Screening Process
• 2001 Regular Report and Strategy Paper

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1. INFORMATION ABOUT REPUBLIC of TURKEY
Population Nearly 72.000.000 (According to 2006
Estimated) Area 814.578 km² Language Turkish
Governing Style Democracy / Secular
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• Turkey is the only pluralist secular democracy in
  the Moslem world and Turkey always relations with
  other European countries.
• Turkey began "westernizing" its economic,
  political and social structures in the 19th
  century. Following the First World War and the
  proclamation of the Republic in 1923, it chose
  Western Europe as the model for its new secular
  structure.
• Memberships of Turkey are
• United Nations
• NATO
• Council of Europe
• OECD
• Western European Union
• Candidate for EU
• Turkey chose to begin close cooperation with the
  fledgling EEC in 1959.

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• 2. ANKARA AGREEMENT
• The first application for the join European
  Economic Community in July 1959. The EEC decided
  to suggest this application in 1959.
• On September 1963, the Agreement created an
  association between the Republic of Turkey and
  the EEC, its called as The Ankara Agreement.
• The Ankara Agreement, which entered into force on
  01 December 1964. Aims of the Ankara Agreement
  are
• Securing Turkeys full membership in the EEC and
• Establishment in 3 phases of a Customs Union
• In the mean time, the First Financial Protocol
  started at 1963-1970 period. The Ankara Agreement
  still constitutes the legal basis of the
  Association between Turkey and the EU.

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3. THE ADDITIONAL PROTOCOL The Additional
Protocol of 13 November 1970 set out in a
detailed fashion how the Customs Union would be
established. The Additional Protocol envisaged
the free circulation of natural persons between
the Parties in the next 12 to 22 years.
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4. TURKEYS APPLICATION for FULL MEMBERSHIP in
1987 On 24 January 1980, Turkey shifted its
economic policy. Opened its economy to the
operation of market forces. On 12 September
1980, military intervention is done and relations
between Turkey and EU stopped in the meantime.
In 1983, some developments in economic area and
multiparty elections are done and relations
returned normality. In the light of these
positive developments Turkey applied for full
membership in 1987. The Council forwarded
Turkeys application to the Commission for the
preparation of an opinion. The Commissions
opinion was completed on 18 December 1989 and
endorsed by the council on 05 February 1990. It
basically underlined Turkeys eligible for
membership. Finally, Customs Union should be
completed in 1995 as envisaged.
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5. THE CUSTOMS UNION Talks began in 1994 and
were finalized on 6 March 1995 at the Turkey-EU
Association Council. On that day the Association
Council adopted its decision 1/95 on the
completion of the Customs Union between Turkey
and the EU in industrial and processed
agricultural goods by 31 December 1995. The
Customs Union constitutes a very important step
towards Turkey's full integration with the EU. It
has also demonstrated that, despite predictions
to the contrary, the Turkish economy was able to
withstand EU competition.
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6. THE EUROPEAN UNIONS ENLARGEMENT PROCESS and
TURKEY Turkey attached particular importance to
the EU's current enlargement process for two main
reasons. Firstly, having played an active role in
the demise of the Soviet bloc. Second, the
Association between Turkey and the EU aims at
Turkey's full membership in the EU. At the last
Association Council of 29 April 1997, the EU
reconfirmed Turkey's eligibility for membership
and asked the Commission to prepare
recommendations to deepen Turkey-EU relations,
while claiming that the development of this
relationship depended on a number of factors
relating to Greece, Cyprus and human rights. The
Commission, however, excluded Turkey from the
enlargement process in its report entitled
"Agenda 2000" which it disclosed on 16 July
1997. As a result, even though the Commission
argued that the same criteria were applied to
Turkey and the other candidates, they produced
logically diverging conclusions.
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• 7. THE LUXEMBURG EUROPEAN COUNCIL and the
  FOLLOWING PERIOD
• The Luxembourg Summit reflected by and large the
  contents of the Commission's "Agenda 2000".
• Turkey's eligibility was reconfirmed.
• The EU decided to set up a strategy to prepare
  Turkey for accession and to create a special
  procedure to review the developments to be made.
• Turkey was invited to the European Conference,
  but a number of unacceptable pre-conditions were
  put forward.
• The development of Turkey-EU relations was made
  conditional on certain economic, political and
  foreign policy questions.
• The Commission was asked to submit suitable
  proposals to enhance Turkey-EU relations.

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The summit meeting held in Cardiff on 15-16 June
1998 offered a good opportunity to rectify the
unwarranted difficult period which Turkey-EU
relations entered into following the Luxembourg
Summit. An important result of the Cardiff
Summit for Turkey-EU relations was the EU
leaders' endorsement of the Commission's
"European Strategy" for Turkey and the request
made to the Commission to find solutions with a
view to making available the financial resources
required for the implementation of the "European
Strategy". At the Cologne European Council held
on 3-4 June 1999, the initiative was taken by the
German Presidency with a view to ensuring the
recognition of Turkey's candidate status on an
equal footing with the others. Following the
earthquake in northeastern part of Turkey in
August 1999, EU gave some humanitarian packages
to Turkey. But there was some problem between
Turkey and Greece, finally this aids finished.
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In 10-11 December 1999, in The Helsinki European
Council, Turkeys recognition as an official
candidate with all its inherent modalities, would
initiate a new phase in Turkey-EU relations. In
13 October 1999, Turkey was invited to Commission
meeting in Helsinki, and started candidate
conditions like the other candidates. 8. TURKEY-
EU RELATIONS / POST-HELSINKI PHASE The
recognition of Turkey as a candidate for
accession at the Helsinki European Council in
December 1999 ushered a new era in the relations
between Turkey and the EU. For both parties,
Helsinki marks a qualitatively new beginning and
a process of strategic mutual transformation.
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9. ACCESSION PARTNERSHIP, the NATIONAL PROGRAM
and RECENT PROGRESS TOWARDS ACCESSION As
foreseen in the Helsinki European Council
conclusions, the EU Commission started to prepare
an Accession Partnership for Turkey, which was
declared on March 8th, 2001. On the other hand,
the framework regulation designed to furnish the
legal basis for the Accession Partnership was
adopted by the General Affairs Council on
February 26th, 2001. After the approval of the
Accession Partnership by the Council and the
adoption of the Framework Regulation, the Turkish
Government announced its own National Program for
the Adoption of the EU acquits on March 19th,
2001. The National Program was submitted to the
EU Commission on March 26th, 2001. The National
Program has been produced with a careful
appreciation of the short and medium term
priorities as spelled out in the Accession
Partnership. Following these important
developments, the 40th Turkey-EU Association
Council meeting was held in Luxembourg on June
26th, 2001. At these meeting some pre-accession
strategy was evaluated and some decisions were
taken about TAIEX and Customs Union. The next
meeting is envisaged for 16 April 2002.
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Progress towards accession continues along the
path set by the National Program. The most
pressing aim here is the opening of accession
negotiations, which depends on the fulfillment of
the Copenhagen political criteria. Thirty-four
Articles of the Turkish Constitution have
recently been amended and many of these
amendments (22) actually coincide with the
provisions of our National Program. The package
of constitutional amendments covers a wide range
of issues, such as improving human rights,
strengthening the rule of law and restructuring
of democratic institutions. In 17 December 2001,
some financial procedures adopted by the
Council. With the single framework, from now on
PHARE procedures will be applied in EU-Turkey
financial cooperation. As far as Community
programs is concerned, Turkey will be able to
participate in them as of 2002, with the
completion of the Framework Agreement.
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10. LAEKEN EUROPEAN COUNCIL The Laeken European
Council of 14-15 December 2001 had important
implications for EU-Turkey relations in general
and the accession process in particular. Foremost
among these is the possibility of opening
accession negotiations with Turkey, which for the
first time has been explicitly mentioned at the
highest levels. Turkeys recent concrete steps as
regards European Security and Defense Policy,
together with the recent developments in Cyprus
also had a positive impact on this conclusion.
Another important decision taken at Laeken is
that Turkey will be taking part in the Convention
on the future of Europe on an equal basis with
the other candidates.
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11. CONVENTION on the FUTURE of EUROPE In
December 2000, The Nice European Council debated
about enlargement of EU in the future. And
finally, Future of the Union declaration was
annexed. After this debate the Ghent Informal
European Council meeting was set up in 19 October
2001. Results of this meeting some new stipulates
was declarated according to the Laeken European
Council. According to this declaration first
meeting was held in 01 March 2002. In accordance
with the Laeken European Council Conclusions,
Turkey will participate in the Convention on an
equal status with the other candidate countries
and will join the Conventions work with two
parliamentarians and a government representative.
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12. SCREENING PROCESS At the Association Council
meeting of April 11th, 2000, 8 sub-committees
were set up with the task of monitoring the
process. The sub-committees completed their
second round meetings within July 2001. As the
experiences of other candidate countries reveal,
there are no uniform procedures for the
initiation of the screening process. As the
Helsinki European Council Conclusions pointed
out, there should be no discrimination between
the candidate countries and future steps for
Turkey should also be similar to those of the
other candidates.
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13. 2001 REGULAR REPORT and STRATEGY PAPER This
year the European Commission prepared its fourth
annual Progress Report for candidate countries.
As all other reports, 2001 Progress Report for
Turkey was announced on 13 November 2001. On the
same day, the Commission also declared its
Strategy Paper, introducing proposals on methods
to be applied in the future, within the framework
of the enlargement process. At this period,
Turkey concerned economic, social and cultural
rights areas, and Turkey trained that human
rights field and modernization in the prison
system. These are some positive steps for EU.
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January 2002 The Euro () became the joint
currency of the European Union. February
2002The first Reform Package (Turkish Penalty
Code, struggle against terror, changes on State
Security Court ) came into force in order to
provide cohesion to the Copenhagen Political
Criteria. September 2002 Turkey was included to
the Eurocorps. December 2002 At the end of the
summit of Copenhagen European Council, the
decision for the membership of the 10 candidate
countries was given. In the part of the Solution
Declaration concerning Turkey, it was said that
the negatiation process of Turkey would begin in
order to fulfill the Copenhagen Political
Criteria until the summit of December 2004.
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April 2003 A new European Union Commision was
established in the Turkish Parliament in order to
negotiate and observe the cohesion of the new
rules to the EU legislation. December 2003 The
Preliminary Development Plan (2004-2006)
conducted by the State Planing Organization was
accepted. April 2004 The referandum was
completed in Cyprus. The 69,4 of Turkish people
in Cyprus accepted but the 75,83 of Greek
people in Cyprus refused the Annan Plan. May
2004 The Constitutional Reform Package was
accepted in the Turkish Parliament. September
2005 The EU declaration said that Turkey must
recognise Cyprus in the course of its membership
talks, must give access to its ports and airports
to Cypriot ships and planes, must apply the
protocol fully to all member states. Also the EU
warned that if it fails to do so, its progress in
the accession talks may stall.
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