Turkey and Accession to the European Union
| Published date | 01 March 2005 |
| Date | 01 March 2005 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/016934410502300101 |
| Subject Matter | Column |
TURKEY AND ACCESSION TO THE
EUROPEAN UNION*
2004 has been a remarkable year in the evolution of the European Union. It
welcomed ten new members, most former East and Central European communist
States. It agreed the terms of a new constitution that, subject to ratification by the
now 25 member States, will come into force by 1 November 2006.
1
And on
17 December 2004, the European Union and Turkey agreed to open the accession
process for Turkey to become a full member of the EU, a process calculated to take
ten years. This is not unusually protracted. Some of the ten new countries had also
around about a decade of formal preparations. Hungary is an example.
Nevertheless, given its population size – equivalent to all ten members that joined
in 2004 – its weak economic position and its formidable human rights and minority
problems, the period of a decade preparation is reasonable and is accepted as such
by public opinion in Turkey. Full membership by 2015 however, is not the inevitable
outcome. Either the EU or Turkey itself could decide against.
The historic agreement with Turkey on accession negotiations did not come out
of the blue, although some of the reactions of surprise, shock and dismay over the
decision, still echoing around Europe, might suggest it had. Turkey has had a long
relationship with the European Union – 40 years in fact. In July 1959 Turkey made
its first application to join the European Economic Community as an associate
member. The negotiations resulted in the Agreement Creating an Association
between Turkey and the EEC (the ‘Ankara Agreement’), from 1 December 1964.
The Ankara Agreement contemplated Turkey’s eventual full membership in the
EEC. It constitutes the legal basis of the current Turkey-EU relationship.
The Agreement was frozen during the 1980 coup, and after the restoration of
constitutional government in the country in the 1980s, Turkey applied for full
membership in 1987 on the basis of the EEC Treaty’s Article 237. That application
did not succeed but did lead to a significant step in economic integration between
Turkey and the EU, a Customs Union, which come effect in 1996. As well Turkey
now participates in some eleven Community programmes including health,
education and the environment.
While from 1990 the EU’s priority became expansion to the East, Turkey’s quest
for full membership nevertheless continued. A key date was that of the Helsinki
Summit of the European Council in 1999. Turkey was told its candidature would be
treated on an equal footing with other candidate States and was requested to fulfil
the Copenhagen political criteria for membership (adopted in 1993), in order to
open accession negotiations.
2
COLUMN
Netherlands Quarterly of Human Rights, Vol. 23/1, 3-6, 2005.
#Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM), Printed in the Netherlands. 3
* Kevin Boyle, Professor of Law, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. United Kingdom. He
would like to thank Ayse Dicle Ergin LL.M. student, for her assistance.
1
Bulgaria and Romania will join in 2007.
2
10-11 December 1999, Helsinki European Council Presidency Conclusions, para. 4. The
Copenhagen political criteria are now incorporated as Article 6(1) of Treaty on European Union:
‘The Union is founded on the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms and the rule of law’.
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