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Turkey formally applied to join the European Community, the organisation that has since developed into the European Union, on 14 April 1987. It was officially recognised as a candidate for membership on 10 December 1999 at the Helsinki summit of the European Council, having been an Associate Member since 1963. It has been invited to start negotiations from 3 October 2005, a process which is likely to take at least a decade to complete. Its possible future accession is now the central controversy of the ongoing enlargement of the European Union.

Overview

The main EU concerns about Turkey have been the Turkish human rights record and the involvement of the military in Turkish politics. The three decade long period of hyperinflation has also been a major deterrent, although Turkey has recently experienced strong growth and for the most part inflation problems are subsiding. The annual inflation level of 75% during the mid-90s has been reduced to 6% in the recent years.

Turkey has started to thoroughly address these issues in the 1990s and the 2000s, with a strong and wide-reaching reform program under the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a popular pro-European party with Islamist roots. Turkey also backed the latest EU-supported UN plan to reunite Cyprus in 2004, although its military occupation of northern Cyprus continues.

In response to these favorable developments, the European Commission recommended that the negotiations should begin in 2005, but also added various precautionary measures. The EU's leaders agreed on 16 December 2004 to start accession negotiations with Turkey from 3 October 2005. The country's eventual accession now faces democratic approval processes in European and member states legislative procedures.

One of the recommendations of the report was that the EU will need to define its financial perspective for the period from 2014 before negotiations can be concluded. Though it is as yet unknown when Turkey will actually join, this clarified somewhat the timeframe: it may be unlikely to happen before 2015—while some EU officials have discussed 2019 as a potential end-date.

Progress towards entry

Turkey has ratified the Sixth Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights and signed the 13th Protocol, meaning it has abolished the death penalty for all peace-time crimes and intends to abolish it for war-time crimes.

The AKP government has lifted a small part of the large-scale a ban on the teaching of Kurdish—there are two private schools teaching Kurdish now – although it does not yet accept the use of Kurdish in regular education (as required by European conventions in those areas historically and currently inhabited by Kurds).

Popular European opposition to Turkey's entry

Opposition to Turkey's entry into the EU varies among the public of the current EU member states, as does political support or opposition to the entry bid. Some arguments put forth by some of those objecting to Turkey's EU candidacy include:

• That most of Turkey's territory is not European but Asian.
• Its large size, combined with the poor state of its economy, lends to arguments that the European Union would not be able to support Turkey or absorb the possibly large number of workers that might leave it for the other member states of the Union.
• Severe doubts on the democratic and secular nature of Turkey.
• The Cyprus dispute– the island is still divided after Turkey's 1974 invasion of the country, with Turkey occupying and supporting the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. Turkey continues to officially recognise only the TRNC and not the Republic of Cyprus, which is an EU member (currently exerting sovereignty only over the southern part of the island).
• Closure of its border with Armenia (because of the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijan is both ethnically and religiously close to Turkey. Armenia also wants their genocide claims to be recognized by Turkey.)
• Turkey's enormous political power once in the Union. Its almost 70 million inhabitants will immediately bestow it the second largest number of representatives in the European Parliament, after Germany, and more than the UK, France or Italy.

Democracy and human rights concerns

Many have continuing doubts on the commitment of the Turkish state to democracy and human rights (cfr. on these rules, the EU constitution & other conventions ), and its ability to reach European standards in these and other issues such as gender equality and minority rights (especially as regards the Kurdish population). Freedom of political speech is another area in which some concerns have arisen (e.g. 'Regular Report on Turkey’s progress towards accession', p. 36 and others). Some decry the recent recognition of the Kurdish language by Turkish authorities as a cosmetic operation. Kurdish education is provided through only a few private schools, while TV in Kurdish is only for a few hours a week and over a limited geographic area. Turkey has been accused of 'bullying behaviour' towards smaller neighbours. For example, an economic embargo is currently maintained against Armenia. EU reports 3, p.8 state that Turkey should take active measures this resolve situation before eventual accession.

Concerns over religion

Islam continues to enjoy large-scale privileges in Turkey, with thousands of imams in state employment, while Turkish clerics from other religions are not paid at all. The Greek Orthodox Church has not (yet) been able to re-open training schools for its clerics. Turkey also continues to post state-financed imams to EU member states. Some EU citizens resent this as interference in the domestic affairs of their states.

The issue of church and state separation is thus another major concern for European democrats.

Moreover, some religious traditions are a concern, as they may be at odds with official equality policy – for example the continued consecration of polygamous marriages by state-paid imams, or recent police instructions on public behaviour that follow strict Islamic lines, such that even holding hands would be punishable.

Turkey's arguments for entry - for and against

Turkey stresses its involvement in European history for about 500 years, mostly through the Ottoman Empire. It considers itself a European state. A prevalent point of view in Turkey, echoed by its prime minister Erdogan, is that the EU seems to be a Christian club, that the EU has anyway no right to consider itself that way, and that this causes reluctance to accept a Muslim state into the Union. The Turks consider their state a strongly secular one, just as the EU defines itself (for example with the abandonment of the proposals to make reference to Europe's Christian heritage in the draft European Constitution).

However, the concept of a secular state differs significantly amongst the public and politicians in Turkey, and in the EU. In addition, some have stated that Turkey has not contributed to any of the major social, political, philosophical or scientific developments that led the European Union to its current status. With regard to the gap in institutional and democratic development, many conclude that Turkey has not taken part in key European developments during the last centuries, and furthermore, that given its ongoing lage-scale discriminations, it is not honestly willing to adopt the core European value of a secular democracy without discriminations.

See also

• Foreign relations of Turkey
• Human rights in Turkey

• European Union
• Turkey
• International relations