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Relations Between Turkey and the European Union The last tango Turkey is the only pluralist secular democracy in the Muslim world and has always attached great importance to developing its relations with other European countries. Historically, Turkish culture has had a profound impact over most of Eastern and Southern Europe. Turkey began "westernising" 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. Turkey has ever since closely aligned itself with the West and has become a founding member of the United Nations, a member of NATO, the Council of Europe, OECD and an associate member of the Western European Union. During the Cold War, Turkey was part of the Western alliance, defending freedom, democracy and human rights. In this respect, Turkey has played and continues to play a vital role in the defence of the European continent and the principal elements of its foreign policy have converged with those of its European partners. Having entered into very close cooperation with Western Europe in the political field, it was therefore only natural for Turkey to complete this in the economic area. Thus, Turkey chose to begin close cooperation with the fledging EEC in 1959. The Ankara Agreement In July 1959, shortly after the creation of the European Economic Community in 1958, Turkey made its first application to join. The EEC's respon-se to Turkey's application in 1959 was to suggest the establishment of an association until Turkey's situation permitted its accession. The ensuing negotiations resulted in the signature of the Agreement Creating An Association Between The Republic of Turkey and the European Economic Community (the "Ankara Agreement") on 12 September 1963. This agreement, which entered into force on 1 December 1964, aimed at securing Turkey's full membership in the EEC through the establishment in three phases of a customs union which would serve as an instrument to bring about integration between the EEC and Turkey. The Customs Union that was to be established between the parties went much further than the abolition of tariff and quantitative barriers to trade between the parties and the application of a Common External Tariff to imports from third countries, and envisaged harmonisation with EEC policies in virtually every field relating to the internal market. The Ankara Agreement still constitutes today the legal basis of the Association between Turkey and the EU. Turkey's application for full membership
in 1987 Turkey applied for full membership in 1987, on the basis of the EEC Treaty's article 237 which gave any European country the right to do so. Turkey's request for accession, filed not under the relevant provisions of the Ankara Agreement, but those of the Treaty of Rome, underwent the normal procedures. The Council forwarded Turkey's application to the Commission for the preparation of an Opinion. This has reconfirmed Turkey's eligibility, given that a similar application by Morocco was turned down by the Council on the grounds that Morocco is not a European country. The Commission's Opinion was completed on 18 December 1989 and endorsed by the Council on 5 February 1990. It basically underlined Turkey's eligibility for membership, yet deferred the indepth analysis of Turkey's application until the emergence of a more favourable environment. Although it did not attain its basic objective, Turkey's application revived Turkey-EC relations: efforts to develop relations intensified on both sides, the Association's political and technical mechanisms started meeting again and measures to complete the Customs Union in time were resumed. Meanwhile, the Commission's promised cooperation package, known as the "Matutes Package", was unveiled in 1990, but could not be adopted by the Council due to Greece's objection. The European Union's 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 during the Cold War, it was only natural for Turkey to aspire for inclusion in the new European architecture which it helped to build. Second, the Association between Turkey and the EU aims at Turkey's full membership in the EU, as underlined once again with the Customs Union whose dynamics aim at bringing about further integration between the two parties. This is why Turkey kept the question of inclusion in the EU's enlargement process on the agenda of Turkey-EU relations. At the 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 rela-ting 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. While the report conceded that the Customs Union was functioning satisfactorily and that it had demonstrated Turkey's ability to adapt to the EU norms in many areas, it repeated the same political and economic arguments against Turkey and made no reference to Turkey's full membership objective. The Commission unveiled on the same day as "Agenda 2000", the "Communication" to enhance relations with Turkey, where it reconfirmed Turkey's eligibility and brought a number of recommendations ranging from liberalisation of trade in services to consumer protection, that aim at taking Turkey-EU relations beyond the Customs Union, but cited a number of political issues as pre-conditions for moving our relations forward. The fact that the EU confirmed Turkey's eligibility for membership but excluded it from the enlargement process has been seen as a contradiction. The Commission opted to propose measures that would reinforce the relationship within their current framework and complemented these measures with the idea of inviting Turkey to the European Conference. In the light of the EU's claims that all candidates would be judged according to the same objective criteria and that there would be no prejudice in their evaluation, Turkey found the Commission's approach unjust and discriminatory. The Luxembourg European Council and the following period Although the decisions of the Luxembourg Summit reflected by and large the contents of the Commission's "Agenda 2000", the following points related to Turkey need to be highlighted: ü Turkey's eligibility was reconfirmed ; ü 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 ; ü Turkey was invited to the European Conference, but a number of unacceptable pre-conditions were put forward ; ü The development of Turkey-EU relations was made conditional on certain economic, political and foreign policy questions, and,.ü The Commission was asked to submit suitable proposals to enhance Turkey-EU relations. In a statement issued the day after the Summit, the Turkish Government criticised the EU's attitude, stated that Turkey's goal of full membership and Association would nevertheless be maintained, but that the development of bilateral relations depended on the EU's honouring its commitments, and that it would not discuss with the EU issues remaining outside the contractual context of the bilateral relations as long as the EU did not change its attitude. In line with this statement Turkey did not participate in the inaugural meeting of the European Conference held in London on 12 March 1998. Turkey thus made it clear that the way out of this difficult situation in the bilateral relations depended on the political will to be displayed by the EU. The Commission published its recommendations for a "European Strategy" on 4 March 1998. Its contents were more or less similar to former packages which the EU promised but failed to deliver in the past. Moreover, the ambiguity over how this package would be financed prevented Turkey from being optimistic about its chances of being put into effect soon. The Commission itself conceded that the implementation of this package would require considerable financial resources. 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. Although certain positive developments were achieved with regard to the language used for Turkey in the Presidency Conclusions of the Summit, they were not sufficient for Turkey to modify its policy outlined after 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".