European Union youth programs' contribution to European citizenship awareness and sustainability of European Union

It has been 57 years since Republic of Turkey applied to be a member of the European Economic Community but Turkey's membership in the European Union (current name) has not concluded yet. The European Union (European Economic Community) has designed and applied many Youth and Education programmes in order to integrate and include Turkey and other candidate and member countries within the adaptation period. These programmes are designed and implemented to have common education and training policies between young people living in the candidate and member countries; incorporate young people into the intercultural learning process; fulfil young people's learning needs with the nonformal and informal learning methods beside formal learning; provide new opportunities to gain competences such as new skills, new knowledge and new attitudes to young people and youth workers; in this way, develop European citizenship awareness and European affiliation of young people and youth workers; to bring European consciousness to young people in the short term and carry out these programs to ensure the sustainability of European Union in the long term. This thesis study was undertaken to see how effective the contribution of youth programmes to the European Citizenship Consciousness in Turkey was, and to see the effects of these programs on the participants after the implementation. Within the scope of the study, the Youth in Programme and Erasmus+ Youth Programmes implemented by European Union from 2007 until 2015 were taken as basis and negotiations were held with in-depth interview techniques with the institutions, organization representatives and participants in the projects organized within these programmes. As a result of the interviews and the statistical reports examined, it was observed that these programs contributed to the awareness of European citizenship and sustainability of European Union on youth and youth workers. This study was carried out during the 2014-2016 academic year at Istanbul Arel University Social Sciences Institute, International Relations Department.