What if turkey joins the eu

The migration crisis of briefly revived EU-Turkey relations. Turkey agreed to take back migrants who reached Greece and who were considered ineligible for asylum, and to better police its border. In exchange the EU agreed to take in some refugees from Turkey directly, pledging to take in one refugee for each person returned from Greece to Turkey. The remaining funds went directly to Turkish ministries, mostly those of education and health.

Then came the attempted military coup of July , in which hundreds of Turks lost their lives. The EU and the US were also highly critical of the crackdown that followed the coup, which saw the government arresting 78, people and dismissing , civil servants.

All this meant that there was little appetite amongst European leaders to fulfil the promises they had made to Ankara in the migration deal. Given the domestic situation in Turkey member-states were untilling to revitalise accession negotiations or open talks on upgrading the EU-Turkey customs union. At the same time, the EU was unwilling to grant Turks visa-free travel to Europe, arguing that Turkey did not meet its benchmarks on issues like the fight against corruption, judicial co-operation, data protection and anti-terror legislation.

Democratic backsliding in Turkey is just one reason why EU-Turkey relations are bad: the EU has decent relations with many states that are much less democratic than Turkey, such as Egypt. The discovery of substantial hydrocarbon deposits in the eastern Mediterranean in the early s had been hailed as a possible way of fostering regional co-operation and facilitating Cypriot reunification.

Democratic backsliding in Turkey is just one reason why EU-Turkey relations are bad. Ankara argues that Turkish Cypriots have a right to a share of Cypriot gas, and that Cyprus cannot commercialise gas until it agrees a consultation and revenue sharing agreement with Turkish Cypriots — or until an overall solution to the Cyprus question can be found.

For over a decade, Turkey has sent its navy to assert its claims and sometimes harassed foreign exploration vessels. The frequency of Turkish operations has increased in recent years.

The EU also cut pre-accession funding to Turkey and instructed the European Investment Bank to review its lending activities in the country. Tensions increased in At the end of February, he encouraged tens of thousands of refugees to make their way to the Greek border. Few were allowed to enter the EU. Since then, Turkey has refused to accept returns of migrants from Greece. Ankara has also sharpened its rhetoric towards Greece and carried out military flights over Greek islands.

Greece responded to these actions by mobilising its naval forces, and France sent warships to the region to support Greece and Cyprus. Tensions ran high, with a collision between Greek and Turkish ships in September. There were also growing tensions on Cyprus itself. This led Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots to advance the idea of a two-state solution, going against the notion of a re-united island, which remains the UN-endorsed framework for resolving the dispute.

While this was the third Turkish operation against the YPG in Syria, it resonated most with European politicians and publics. European leaders pledged not to conclude new agreements to sell arms to Turkey, while stopping short of imposing an arms embargo.

In late Turkey intervened in the Libyan civil war. In exchange for Turkish assistance against Haftar, in the form of Syrian mercenaries and drones, the GNA signed a maritime delimitation agreement with Ankara that divided up much of the eastern Mediterranean between Libya and Turkey, without taking into account the maritime zones of Crete and other Greek islands. For Turkey the deal was very valuable, as it consolidated its claims to large areas of the eastern Mediterranean and its resources, and made it harder to advance a Cypriot-Greek-Israeli project for a pipeline to bring Cypriot and Israeli gas to Europe.

This revived the UN-led political process which led to the creation of a Libyan unity government in March In the autumn of , Turkey supported Azerbaijan in its successful effort to retake its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, which had been under separatist Armenian control. Europeans were not directly affected, but many were annoyed at being completely excluded from the resolution of the conflict, with Turkey and Russia able to end the war on their own terms. Finally, Turkish policy in the Western Balkans has also created some friction with Europe.

Member-states were divided over whether to impose tougher sanctions. Greece called for stopping the export of military equipment and suggested the EU consider suspending the customs union with Turkey.

France and Austria also supported a tough stance. Turkey has also expanded its influence in North and West Africa, something that France sees as a threat to its interests there. The hawkish member-states did not succeed in persuading the others to enact tougher sanctions, however. In part, this was because Turkey withdrew its ships before each European summit, making many European leaders unwilling to take steps that could escalate the situation.

Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria and Malta emerged as the most wary of sanctions, in part for economic reasons. Third, dovish member-states also thought that sanctions risked escalating tensions with Ankara, a NATO ally, without necessarily succeeding in changing its policy.

Finally, many member-states, but particularly Germany, were concerned that Turkey could respond to sanctions by pushing migrants towards the EU, leading to another migration crisis.

The EU coalesced around a dual approach, as reflected in the European Council conclusions of October and December It does not remove the need for border checks and many regulatory restrictions on trade remain. Turkey is also not fully included in trade agreements between the EU and other countries, encouraging it to follow up EU trade deals by negotiating parallel agreements with third countries in order to achieve similar benefits.

Ankara wants to improve the customs union and to be included in EU trade agreements with third countries. The EU also has an interest in upgrading the customs union, both because of its inherent economic benefits and because it wants to ensure that the dispute resolution mechanism is made more effective.

But European leaders remained cautious. In early , Turkey halted its energy exploration activities and said that it wanted better relations with Europe and the US. In January, Turkey and Greece resumed talks, last held in , on how they could settle bilateral disputes. Turkey adopted a less confrontational tone towards many of its neighbours in the Middle East, especially Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The government also announced an action plan to improve human rights and said it wanted to adopt a new constitution. The Turkish lira lost 30 per cent of its value against the US dollar between January and November , and the central bank had used up nearly all its foreign currency reserves.

The expectation that newly elected US President Joe Biden would take a tougher stance towards Turkey compared to former president Donald Trump, and that the EU would follow suit, also encouraged Ankara to take a step back.

Finally, Ankara probably thought that having confrontational relationships with most of its neighbours was unsustainable. At the March European Council, they stated Turkey had to continue to de-escalate for them to launch the positive agenda they had promised, and agreed to discuss relations again in June.

Even though responsibility for the episode appears to lie at least in part on the EU side, it nevertheless injected further tension into discussions of a renewed EU-Turkey partnership.

Polling suggest that most Turks perceive the US as a hostile actor, with 60 per cent naming it as the biggest threat to Turkey, according to a study by the German Marshall Fund. US policy in Syria has been one of the main sources of tension. This created a rift with Turkey, which feared that the YPG could establish a state-like entity on its border and foment separatism on its territory. Closer ties between Turkey and Russia are also driven by a shared sense of anti-Americanism.

Washington also suspended Turkey as a partner in the F programme, from which the Turkish defence industry would have benefitted greatly. And Russia and Turkey have been able to work together to mutual benefit in the conflicts in Syria, Nagorno-Karabakh and Libya, despite supporting different sides in each of those. All this does not mean that Turkey and Russia are allies.

The US has invested more in relationships with other allies in the region, particularly with Greece. In late , the US Congress passed the eastern Mediterranean security and energy partnership act.

In Washington and Athens updated their mutual defence co-operation agreement, with the US increasing its presence at the Souda Bay base in Crete.

Ankara has built a strong defence industry and expanded its military forces, particularly its navy. It has established military bases in Iraq, Libya, Qatar, Somalia and Syria, and has become highly skilled in using military drones. To balance its ties with the West, Turkey has built closer relations with Russia and, to a lesser degree, China. Agreeing to one non-European member would open the door for candidates from Cape Verde to Kazakhstan. Turkey is too big for the EU to absorb. With a population predicted to reach 91 million by , it will be the dominant member of the EU.

Turkish democracy is at a crossroads. Until recently, the prospect of EU membership had spurred reforms that strengthened pluralistic politics and improved human rights. The passage to EU membership could provide the incentive Turkey needs to shrug off emerging authoritarian tendencies and commit fully to democracy. Turkey is a strong and loyal NATO ally. Leaving it in the cold could see this growing economic and diplomatic power develop into an uncomfortable rival to European interests in a sensitive region.

Having accepted Turkey as a candidate, rejecting it now would undermine European credibility. It has something to do with disagreements between EU member states regarding which direction the EU should follow after the enlargements which incorporated former Eastern Bloc countries. Secondly, after the rejection of the draft for the EU Constitution by France and the Netherlands in , further integration of the Union stalled. Thirdly, we presently witness emergence of Islamophobia and Xenophobia, and populist ultra-nationalistic parties.

This, combined with the flow of refugees to Europe from the Middle Eastern countries after the Arab Spring, negatively influenced the European public view of Turkey.

They, however, are not able to convince others to allow Turkey in. Under the light of these recent developments, do you think problems between Turkey and the EU will be solved sometime soon? First, the EU accepting its mistakes and developing a positive, constructive attitude toward Turkey.

This, nevertheless, seems not so likely. The second, Turkey cutting its ties with Europe and aligning itself with Russia, China, and Iran, and focusing on the East. I consider this extreme and unlikely.

And the third option is redefining the Turkish-EU relations by taking into consideration the historical context. I believe through such agreement, which I see likely, Turkey will fortify its position in Europe and the world.

AA: What would you suggest to the Turkish public? Shall we stay frustrated or develop a rational approach on Turkish-EU relations? Hence, it is only normal for Turkey to take its place in the European Union.