EU ENLARGEMENT AND TURKEY Nilgn ARISAN ERALP Secretariat General for the EU Affairs 15 October 2003

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EU ENLARGEMENT AND TURKEY Nilgün
ARISAN ERALPSecretariat General for the EU
Affairs 15 October 2003
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Enlargement in the European integration process

• An unquestioned success since its establishment
  and currently one of the main agents of the
  transformation of the EU
• 1st (1973) Great Britain, Denmark Ireland
• 2nd(1981) Greece
• 3rd (1986) Spain and Portugal
• 4th(1995) Austria, Finland, Sweden

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Enlargement in the European integration process

• 5th (2004) Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia,
  Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland,
  Slovenia, Slovakia
• At the door step Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia
  Turkey ?
• Near Future Western Balkans Albania,
  Bosnia-Herzegovina Macedonia, Serbia-Montenegro

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Main Reason of the Success of Enlargement

• Through enlargement EU promoter of
  positive values
• The values and principles acquired through the
  integration process are transmitted to the
  acceding and candidate countries via membership
  conditionality.

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Values and Principles of the EU

• Values and principles of the EU are consolidated
  in the form of Copenhagen (1993) and Madrid
  Criteria (1995) for membership which refer to
• democracy
• human rights
• rule of law
• minority rights
• economic competitiveness
• governability.

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Values and Principles of the EU Governability

• The governability principles are embedded in the
  EU acquis (body of EU legislation)
• transparency
• accountability
• participation with a special emphasis on social
  dialogue
• subsidiarity (the doctrine that government action
  should take place at the lowest sensible level)
• change in the role of state producer state
  regulatory state.

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Benefits of adopting and enforcing EUs values
and principles

• security
• stability
• prosperity
• full democracy
• respectable standing in international fora
• an active role in the construction of the still
  unfinished Euroepan Union
• funds being provided by the EU and market and
  investment opportunities .

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Benefits of adopting and enforcing EUs values
and principles

• Learning and benefiting from mutual recognition
  and burden sharing
• In other words
• learning to live in a highly developed system
  for the joint management of interdependence
  solidarity

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Benefits of enlargement for the EU

• multiculturalism the dream of the founding
  statesmen EU can become a unique union of
  diverse cultures
• The EU larger political and economic power
  to influence in international affairs
• - expanding markets
• - young workforce
• - probably more transparent efficient and
  democratic decision making.

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Where Do the borders of the EU lie?

• European integration in the post war period has
  been characterised by continuous expansion in
  terms of geography as much as policy functions.
• Currently, EU appears to be launched on a
  process of continual expansion although there is
  no clear strategic vision of the further
  enlargement.
• There is always the issue of how far the EU can
  expand.

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Where Do the borders of the EU lie?

• However European construction is the very
  negation of the traditional idea of what a border
  is
• Q A of M. Jean-Dominique GIULIANI, Chairman of
  the Robert Schuman Foundation
• - Is the EU building a super State that demands
  safe and recognised borders?
• No! MS wish to maintain their identities and
  share certain basic rules governing voluntary
  participation and co-operation.

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Where Do the borders of the EU lie?

• Did EU establish intangible borders from the very
  start of European construction?
• No! This has enabled it to become the leading
  commercial power in the world as it has grown and
  expanded.
• Has the lack of definitive borders been the
  source of trouble until now?
• No! It has enabled Europe to gain in strength.

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Where Do the borders of the EU lie?

• Were the previous stages of enlargement negative
  for Europe?
• No! They strengthened the Union, widened its
  markets and the area of free movement.
• Have the relations that it has upheld with all
  of the many candidate countries for membership
  damaged EUs interests?
• No, on the contrary they contributed towards them
  and Europe no longer has enemies at its borders,
  it has only "interested" countries.

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Where Do the borders of the EU lie?
The European Union is a Community of values
and values have no borders. The more certain
EU is about its values and the more intransigent
it is about the rules that MS establish
together, the less it shall need physical
borders.
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Border question and Turkey
Guy VERHOFSTADT borders debate is a false
debate... False because it relates in essence
only to Turkey Some respectable scholars who
emphasise the importance of borders, question
Turkeys accession to the EU on this front
If Turkey why not Ukraine and Belarus and even a
modernising Morocco ? Unfair to Turkey.
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Border question and Turkey
Or sometimes more blunt ones Does the EU want
Turkey even some years down the road or not
? Unfair to European values
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Border question and Turkey
We are aware of the fact that Turkey presents a
very different challenge however -
geographically Turkey is not in the middle of
Europe, although the geographical land Turkey has
in Europe is actually bigger than some countries
in Europe - there are some acceding countries
who do not have any land in Europe
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Border question and Turkey
Stephen KINZER - no other piece of geography
on earth has been home to so many different
peoples over so many centuries Turkeys land
has been populated since the beginning of human
history by an amazing number of civilisations
pagan, Christian and Islamic coming from Greece,
Rome, Egpyt Arabia, Persia and even places far
away.
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Border question and Turkey
On top of all these In 1987 Turkey has based
its application for membership on Article 237 of
the Founding Treaty which proclaims Any
European state may apply to become a member of
the Community Moroccos application was refused
on these grounds in 1987. However Turkeys
application was accepted by the Council of
Ministers and transmitted to the Commission for
preparation of an avis.
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Border question and Turkey
The question whether Turkey is eligible for
membership or whether it may accede to the Union
was answered four years ago in Helsinki by the
European Council. Even before that Commission
Publication entitled Turkey-EEC Relations
1963-1967 stated that this association
formula is totally different from other
association agreements the Community has entered
into. In the case of Turkey as for Greece the
association formula of Article 238 was used as a
form of pre-accession.......or put it
differently association is considered as a
preliminary to an eventual accession
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Border question and Turkey
Article 28 of the Ankara Agreement states that
as soon as the operation of this Agreement has
advanced far enough to justify envisaging full
acceptance by Turkey of the obligations arising
out of the Treaty establishing the Community, the
Contracting Parties shall examine the possibility
of the accession of Turkey to the Community.
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Border question and Turkey
Now opening the debate on the eligibility of
Turkey will create doubts about the main values
of the EU. We do not think that the dream of the
founding fathers was a monocultural Europe,
neither it was running counter to the
achievement of Enlightenment that of
seperation of Church and State, which put an end
to age old religious conflicts.
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Border question and Turkey
As stated by Prof. Loukas TSOULAKIS some
useful lessons can be drawn from the southern
enlargement of the Union the first and perhaps
the simplest lesson is that it is virtually
impossible to refuse membership when it comes
from a European country that fulfils the basic
political and economic criteria, but you can
certainly keep the applicants waiting for a long
time
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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS
Therefore the ball is in Turkeys court as
clearly stated by the European Council in
Copenhagen almost a year ago if the
European Council in December 2004, on the basis
of a report and a recommendation from the
Commission, decides that Turkey fulfils the
Copenhagen political criteria, the EU will open
negotiations without delay.   
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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS

• Turkey has accomplished a comprehensive
  democratic and economic agenda.
• In the political front legal infrastructure has
  been completed, currently all the efforts
  concentrate on ensuring full and effective
  implementation of political reforms.
• A few weeks ago an inter-ministerial reform
  monitoring commitee has been established to
  overview the progress.

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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS Economic Criteria

• In terms of the economic criteria, Turkey has
  restructured its financial sector, ensured
  transparency in public finance, and enhanced
  competitiveness and efficiency in the economy.
  The structural reforms have already started to
  yield tangible results and considerable progress
  has been made .
• Even in 2002 Progress Report the Commission
  stated that
• Turkey has made progress on the functioning of
  its market economy, which should improve its
  capacity to cope with the competitive pressure
  and market forces within the Union, but is still
  undergoing the consequences of the two deeply
  stabilising financial crises

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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS

• Current picture as a consequence of the
  resolute implementation of the economic program
• - the inflation declined to unprecedented levels
  
• the vigorous growth and confidence has been
  restored
• budget deficit decreased
• private sector investments have gained pace.

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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS

• Acquis the principles and values
• Transparency and accountability
• the Law on the right to have access to
  information
• new budgetary system
• an independent authority to fight against
  corruption
• establishment of an independent authority for
  state aid
• strengthening of the Public Procurement
  Authority .
• Participation
• change in the working procedure of the Economic
  and Social Council
• strengthening of social dialog especially in the
  labour market
• preparing the National Development Plan with a
  participatory method

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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS

• Acquis the principles and values
• Subsidiarity
• Public sector reform programme gives the
  responsibility to the most appropriate unit and
  the lowest administrative level.
• Moreover the reform programme aims to enhance the
  participation principle in the state-citizen
  relations by increasing the number of
  consultation mechanisms in the policy-making.
• Change in the role of state
• Network industries and natural monopolies are
  being introduced to market competition. State
  regulator in these sectors.

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TURKEYS ACCESSION PROCESS
The Government monitors the implementation of all
the measures of the National Programme closely.
All public institutions have been instructed to
report the developments concerning legal,
administrative and institutional mesaures in
National Programme to the Secretariat General for
the EU Affairs to be submitted to the Council of
Ministers regularly.
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THE UNDERLYING PRINCIPLE OF TURKEYS CURRENT
ACCESSION PROCESS
at the core of integration of any form, lies
the need to establish credible commitments
Turkey currently concentrates all its efforts
to make its commitments credible. We expect the
same stance from the EU.
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HOW TURKEY CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE EU ?

• multiculturalism
• dissemination of values.