Mehmet Kanbur

Szczecin University, Poland

kurbili@hotmail.com

Tomasz Bernat

Szczecin University, Poland

kontakt@tomaszbernat.pl

Europeanization in Turkey and Accession Process to the European Union

Received:

July, 2013

1st Revision:

September, 2013

Accepted:

October, 2013

DOI:

10.14254/2071-

8330.2013/6-2/7

Abstract. Turkey is still waiting to be one of the European Union’s members. More than 50 years ago Turkey‘s government first asked to join the European Union. During the time, other countries have joined, expanding the 6 members European club to 28. Unfortunately, even the most optimistic scenario says Turkey is unlikely to be part of the EU for at least another decade. While the European Union is working with Turkey to help it move toward being able to become a member of the European Union, there are some politicians and economists who are concerned about Turkey’s potential membership. Those opposed to Turkish membership in the EU point to several issues that Turkey isn’t in Europe geographically, culturally; Turkey isn’t a part of Europe. Besides Turkey has a large population, high unemployment rate and migration as a potential problem for the EU. Accession of Turkey to the Union would be challenging both for the EU and Turkey. If incorporating will be well managed, it would offer important opportunities for both parties. Referred to above this paper aims at providing a brief overview of the EU’s accession process and Turkey’s path to the EU membership. Main hypothesis assumes that the Turkey’s accession to the EU is not simply down to a failure to comply with the official membership criteria.

Keywords: European Union, Turkey, membership negotiation, Cyprus, Identity, Kurdish, Armenian.

JEL classification: F15, N43, N45.