EU-Turkey Working Papers (closed)


1 - 15 of 15
01 May 2005

In the year preceding the European Council’s historic decision to open accession negotiations with Turkey in December 2004 and its immediate aftermath, CEPS published a monthly electronic bulletin containing essays, research papers, speeches and official documents that reflected the concerns and advances during this critical period in the relationship between Turkey and the EU.

01 January 2005

Will migrants of Turkish origin and their descendants, also known as ‘Euro-Turks’, act as a vanguard or an impediment in Turkey’s desire to join the EU? To challenge the stereotypes of Euro-Turks both in their homeland and in their countries of settlement, extensive research has been carried out in Germany and France by the Centre for Migration Research in Istanbul.

01 December 2004

In the debate about Turkish EU membership and free movement of labour it is often overlooked that the EU cannot exercise a zero migration policy even if permanent safeguards were used. Even under the currently prevailing strict regime, there is an annual net migration from Turkey to the EU-15 in the order of 35,000 people. Any slowdown or suspension in Turkey’s accession process is likely to lead lower growth and higher unemployment in Turkey. Moreover, the reform process might slow down or be partially reversed.

01 October 2004

This paper sets out Turkey’s current and potential role in the supply of gas to Europe, starting with the EU’s need for gas, the geography of global gas disposition and Turkey’s importance as a natural funnel through which the EU can access gas from many of the world’s leading gas suppliers. It also places Turkey’s role in the context of EU reliance on Russia as its largest single supplier of gas.

01 October 2004

The legislative framework for the energy market in Turkey has been changing rapidly over the last few years with further progress made towards harmonising Turkey’s legislation with the Community’s energy aquis. Yet there are still shortcomings in the functioning of the market, such as the effectiveness of regulation, price trends and loss rates. Moreover, there are still regulatory restrictions on cross-border trading, although the technical preparations to connect the Turkish grid to Europe are advancing well.

01 September 2004

Turkey presents a fascinating case study on the potential fiscal consequences of price stability against a background characterised by a combination of recent central bank independence, a difficult path towards price stability, a high degree of dollarisation and a central bank balance sheet burdened with items that have little to do with monetary policy.

01 August 2004

This paper starts with the assumption that the EU will decide to open accession negotiations with Turkey at the end of 2004 and in this context it explores the potential for the integration of EU and Turkish foreign, security and defence policies in the pre-accession period. The evolving nature of both the EU and Turkey as foreign policy actors is considered, with attention drawn to the effective graduations in the nature of the EU’s external borders as it extends its membership and association arrangements deeper into the south-eastern periphery.

01 August 2004

This paper’s general argument is that the Copenhagen political criteria constitute the leverage that is making Turkish modernisation and democratisation more plural, multi-cultural and consolidated. In the first section, a historical overview of modern Turkey is undertaken from the perspective of political modernisation and democratic consolidation in order to assess Turkey’s ability to meet the requirements of the Copenhagen political criteria.

01 August 2004

This paper assesses issues of border controls, visa regimes, asylum and irregular immigration policies in context of Turkey’s candidacy for accession to the EU. Under present EU policy, Turkey would need to apply all present legislation governing the movement of persons across the external frontiers of the Schengen area by the time of accession, although the frontier between Turkey and the Schengen area would not be eliminated for some years, as is also the case for the new member states which acceded in May 2004.

01 August 2004

The paper explores the readiness of the Turkish banking sector for integration into the European Union. We address the issue from four different angles. First, we review the present structure and health of the sector, including the state of the regulatory framework, providing where possible a comparative perspective with the larger EU accession countries. Second, we look at the sector’s financial solidity in 2003, with a view to gauging its readiness to adapt to a more challenging banking environment.

01 August 2004

Owing to the EU-Turkish customs union, there is already a considerable degree of convergence between Turkey and the EU in the area of trade. In fact, Turkey is the only candidate country that has a customs union with the EU. At least with respect to the trade in goods, Turkey is almost part of the Single Market. The challenge of enhancing the present state of trade integration could be approached in two ways. First, the customs union could be deepened by refining the arrangements and addressing its shortcomings.

01 August 2004

When calculating the cost of Turkish membership for the incumbent members, one must appreciate that this process is highly speculative. Not only Turkey, but also the EU are evolving and changing constantly. In addition, one cannot know with certainty what the rules concerning the budget will be by the time of accession. Nevertheless, there are ways to – at least to some extent– to calculate the cost that Turkey as a fully integrated EU member would represent to the budget.

01 August 2004

Recurrent severe macroeconomic crises have not allowed the Turkish economy to realise its growth potential over the last two decades. The stabilisation programme launched after the latest crisis in the spring of 2001 has so far been successful in the sense that inflation has fallen from over 70% to less than 10% and public debt is declining slowly as a % of GDP. The key task now is to transform this hard won stability into a normal state of affairs, i.e. to stabilise stabilisation.

01 August 2004

Health not wealth should be the decisive criterion when considering the prospects of Turkey's application for EU membership. This paper assesses the growth prospects for the Turkish economy over the next decade. It implicitly ask whether Turkey can start closing the gap with the EU in terms of income per capita once it has achieved macroeconomic stability and negotiations with the EU provide an anchor for overall economic policy-making.