Turkey-EU accession negotiations: Regional policy issues

TURKEY-EU ACCESSION NEGOTIATIONS: REGIONAL POLICY ISSUESWritten by: Ecren İSKENDERSUMMARYTurkey has started the accession negotiations with the European Union(EU)on October 3, 2005. The accession negotiations were unfortunately shadowed by theclaims that EU was not treating Turkey equitably. The Negotiation Framework thatsets the principles governing the negotiations was one of the basic documents facingcriticism. This thesis analyzes the Negotiation Framework for Turkey andconcentrates on Article 12 which states that the EU Commission will includesafeguard measures to its proposals in areas such as freedom of movement ofpersons, structural policies or agriculture where appropriate. In this context, therelevant research question is taken to be what Turkey may come across during itsaccession negotiations under the chapter of Regional Policy and StructuralInstruments. After examining the conditions of the previous accessions the thesisconcludes that when Turkey becomes a member state, it would not be just and fair ifit is deprived from the instruments of structural policies, namely the EU RegionalPolicy instruments such as the Structural and Cohesion Funds. The objectives andinstruments of EU Regional Policy are analyzed to give an idea of what Turkeywould be deprived if this were to happen. Furthermore, the third and fifth EUenlargements are analyzed to see what other member states had experienced duringaccession negotiations, so as to identify what safeguard measures may be foreseenfor Turkey under structural policies, and what Turkey should do in order to minimizethe number and extent of such measures.Keywords: European Union, Turkey, Accession Negotiations, Regional Policyiii