"Critically Discuss the Prospective Economic and Political Impact of Turkish Accession to the European Union"

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Coursework for

EC0902A

The Political Economy of the European Union

Lecturer: Dr. Charles Maddison

Title:

“Critically Discuss the Prospective Economic and Political Impact of Turkish Accession to the European Union”

Submitted by:

Sonja Ambrosius

Student No. 0404332

‘Turkey is part of Europe.’        (Walter Hallenstein, 1963)

‘Is Turkey European?’        (Claude Cheysson, 1984)

Introduction

These two quotes give a good start for an essay about the prospective political and economical effects of an accession of Turkey to the European Union (EU).

In 1963 Turkey signed the European Association agreement, normally seen as a prelude to membership, as the second country ever. The Ankara agreement included three phases which would bring Turkey to full economic integration in the EU. Nowadays it seems like the process got stuck and some members of the EU, like the quote of the former French minister for foreign affairs shows, feel less attached to the thought of Turkey as a member of the EU then people did in 1963.

Turkey has a customs Union with the EU and the status of an associate member since 1963. Turkey first applied to fully join the EU in 1987. The stumbling of the integration of Turkey found its peak in 1997 at the European Council Summit in Luxembourg where accession negotiations were opened to all applicants except Turkey. The Turkish reaction was not to participate in the European Conference in London 1998. This led to reinforcement of Turkeys membership and in 1999 Turkey was finally accepted as candidate for full membership. In October of this year the European Commission stated that Turkey would be ready for accession talks and in December the European Council meeting will finally decide about the opening of accession talks with Turkey (Dorronso, 2004). This brief summary of Turkey’s role in Europe leads to the question whether Turkey actually should become a full member of the EU or not. What are the effects of Turkey’s accession and what are the pros and cons in the discussion? This essay will give an overview about these two questions and finally a critical summary of the arguments.

Economical effects

In this column the economic burdens will be shown followed by the economic gains. The economic part of the Copenhagen Criteria Turkey has to fulfil is a functioning market economy and the ability to compete in the EU internal market.  

It has to be said that Turkish membership would be an economic burden for the EU. The accession would cost about 10 – 15% of the EU budget, just as much as the recent enlargement did cost. The GDP in Turkey is 29% of the EU average. Unemployment is probably around 25% while officially stated as 9%, especially the young and women are showing exceptionally high unemployment rates. Inflation was very high (70%) after the economic crisis in 2001 but since then Turkey has improved a lot and Inflation has now come to a historic low (Dorronsoro 2004 and ).

Still even for Turkey the costs of meeting the European standards will be high and after the recent enlargement Europe won’t be able to assist with substantial financial aid for the transitions that have to be made.

The agricultural sector should be pointed out because of its significance.  30 to 40% of Turkey’s population work in the agricultural sector. The agricultural system is very different from that of the EU. Mostly small and medium sized farms are not competitive for the international market and the European legislation (Dorronso, 2004). The big agriculture in Turkey would require its share of the EU Fund for Agriculture which already takes up 44 bn € which is the main part of the budget ().

Join now!

The Turkish workforce with many young people and a much higher birth rate than the ‘strong’ European nations seems a threat to many European governments but there are advantages out of this fact as well be pointed out later. This fear might be fed by statistics saying that half of the Turkish population is thinking about moving abroad. It is also feared that Turkey could be used as an easy way in the EU for immigrants. The rate of illegal immigration into Turkey has significantly risen in the last years but the Turkish government is already working against that trend ...

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