Turkey and EU relations can be dated back as far as 1959, when Turkey applied for an association with the European Commission, thus on year after the enforcement of the Treaty of Rome. Turkey is an official candidate to join the European Union. The Ankara Agreement which was signed in 1963. Additional protocol was also signed in 1970 which underlined two main documents. The first time was to ensure future Turkey’s Custom Union with EU, whiles the second was to find modalities to ensure Turkey’s full membership with the EU. It must be noted that Turkey’s long term dream of having Customs Union with the EU became a reality on 1st January.1996. In spite of the fact that Turkey is the only country to have reached such an advanced stage with the EU without necessary becoming full member it took then 32 years. This delay was mainly due to;
· The huge economical gap existing between Turkey and the EU at that time
· Also because of Turkey’s military intervention with Greece between 1960 and 1980s.
According to the Article 24 of the GATT, Turkey now can import and export goods to and from EU without any restriction. However, Turkey should also apply the union’s common trade policy in dealing with other countries outside the EU. For the time been, the Customs Union covers only industrial and processed agricultural products, plans are, however, in advance to add traditional Agricultural products pending Turkey’s adaptation to the EU’s Common Agricultural policy.
Turkey-EU association relations that guided Turkey’s foreign economic and commercial relations were culminated with the establishment of the Customs Union. The completion of the Customs Union is the most important development effecting Turkish economy since adoption of liberalization measures by the 1980s. The Customs Union with the EU is the most comprehensive element that contributes to strengthening Turkey’s expanding role as a business partner.
An important feature of the Turkey-EU Customs Union is that Turkey is the first and only country to enter into such an advanced form of economic integration without being a full member. As it is a unique case for the EU, there are several issues other than tariff reductions where Turkey and the EU agree to cooperate.
Turkey started preliminary negotiations on 3 October 2005. However, analysts believe 2015 is the earliest date the country can join the union due to the plethora of economic and social reforms it has to complete. Since it has been granted official candidate status, Turkey has implemented permanent policies on human rights, abolished the death penalty, granted cultural rights to its large Kurdish minority, and taken positive steps to solve the Cyprus question. However, due to its religious and cultural differences, Turkey faces strong opposition from governments of some member states, including France, Germany, Austria and Cyprus. The Greek government has supported in principle the Turkish candidacy, while in practice linking its progress with the resolution of the long standing Cyprus dispute. Pope Benedict XVI, the head of the Roman Catholic Church, also opposes Turkey becoming a member state because of its predominantly Muslim population. *
As well as, there are some cases where there are advantages and disadvantages of joining to European Union. EU is international entity where many states united and became as Union. In such cases all countries who are members of EU have sovereignty, independence, flag, nationality, background, culture, mentality, tradition and some other criteria which are not mentioned make a sense that they are different but in order to avoid preceded incidents of history, they have united to go hand in hand.
Items that I mentioned above and according to it disadvantages follow as:
Disadvantages
1. The instability of the system.
Throughout most of the 1980s the UK refused to join the ERM (Exchange rate
mechanism). It argued that it would be impossible to maintain exchange
rate stability within the ERM, especially in the early 1980s when the
pound was a petro-currency and when the UK inflation rate was consistently
above that of Germany. When the UK joined the ERM in 1990 there had been
three years of relative currency stability in Europe and it looked as
though the system had become relatively robust.
2. Loss of Sovereignty.
On the political side, it is argued that an independent central bank is
undemocratic. Governments must be able to control the actions of the
central banks because Governments have been democratically elected by the
people, whereas an independent central bank would be controlled by a non
elected body. Moreover, there would be a considerable loss of sovereignty.
Power would be transferred from London to Brussels. This would be highly
Undesirable because national governments would lose the ability to control
policy.
4. Deflationary tendencies.
Perhaps the most important economic argument relates to the deflationary
tendencies within the system. In the 1980s and 90's France succeeded in
reducing her inflation rates to German levels, but at the cost of higher
unemployment, for the UK, it can be argued, that membership of the ERM
between 1990 and 1992 prolonged unnecessarily the recessional period. This
is because the adjustment mechanism acts rather like that of the gold
standard. Higher inflation in one ERM country means that it is likely to
generate current account deficits and put downward pressure on its
currency. To reduce the deficit and reduce inflation, the country has to
deflate its economy. In the UK, it could be argued that the battle to
bring down inflation had been won by the time the UK joined the ERM in
1990. However, the UK joined at too high an exchange rate. It was too high
because the UK was still running a large current account deficit at an
exchange rate of around 3 Dm to the pound. The UK government then spent
the next two years defending the value of the pound in the ERM with
interest rates which were too high to allow the economy to recover. Many
forecasts predicted that, had the UK not left the ERM in Sept 1992,
inflation in the UK in 1993 would have been negative (ie prices would have
fallen).The economic cost of this would have been continued unemployment
at 3million and a stagnant economy. When the UK did leave the ERM and it
rapidly cut interest rates from 10% to five and a half %, there was strong
economic growth and the current account position improved, but there was
an inflation cost.
EU is not only economic and political union but traditional and cultural aspects includes as well. But today situation is changing and EU entity is going to influence it and gradually Political Union might be achieved by EU, then all values beliefs, cultures, traditions will be the same because might be presented as a one nation. According to my outlook these values and beliefs of each nation is important because, it what does motivates them as a nation (country), however the union drains them. From economy point of view is good to stabilize the economy but they ignore subjective matters as I have mention in previous statements but objectives matters have been achieved but have not finalized the union because Political Union not achieved, which is the hardest stage and further one.
However, if take into consideration other points, which are advantages then we can see also some advantages that EU benefits in fact. As follows:
Advantages
For instance, UK firms currently spend about 1.5 billion sterling a year buying
and selling foreign currencies to do business in the EU.
With the EMU this is eliminated, so increasing profitability of EU firms.
Advice to young people: You can go on holiday and not have to worry about
getting your money changed, therefore avoiding high conversion charges.
EU firms and households often find it difficult to accurately compare the
prices of goods, services and resources across the EU because of the
distorting effects of exchange rate differences.
Many firms become wary when investing in other countries because of the
uncertainty caused by the fluctuating currencies in the EU. Investment
would rise in the EMU area as the currency is universal within the area,
therefore the anxiety that was previously apparent is there no more.
4. Single currency in single market makes sense.
Trade and everything else should operate more effectively and efficiently
with the Euro. Single currency in a single market seems to be the way
forward.
5. Rival to the "Big Two".
If we look out in the world today we can see strong currencies such as the
Japanese Yen and The American $. America and Japan both have strong
economies and have millions of inhabitants. A newly found monetary union
and a new currency in Europe could be a rival to the "BIG TWO".
EMU can be self-supporting and so they could survive without trading with
anyone outside the EMU area.
The situation that EMU is in is good as it seems that it can survive on
its own, with or without the help of Japan and U.S.A.
6. Prevent war.
The EMU is, and will be a political project. It's founding is a step
towards European integration, to prevent war in the union. It's a well
known fact that countries who trade effectively together don't wage war on
each other and if EMU means more happy trade, then this means, peace
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