Turco-French relations during the ongoing candidacy process of Turkey to the European Union based on the 1963 Ankara Agreement

The aim of this thesis is to present answers to the following questions: how did French governments react to and what were their attitudes as regards developments in the legal, political and diplomatic processes that took place in the course of the European Union candidacy process of Turkey. This was set on a legal basis with the 1963 Ankara Agreement of which parameters have been incorporated into Turkish foreign policy and from which changes have been made to policy areas. The reactions of French presidents will be studied in later sections. The Ankara Agreement of 1963, which first envisaged the establishment of the Customs Union, outlined a three-stage legal framework. Then from 1996, the Customs Union entered into force by the decision of the Association Council numbered 1/95, known as the Customs Union Agreement. Developments experienced in Turkey's European Union candidacy process until 2017, in accordance with the Ankara Agreement, have been examined from the perspective of France in particular. In the study, primary sources include records and statements of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, archives of the French Presidency and the Prime Ministry, Turkish and French press archives as well as interviews with diplomats who served in France. Secondary sources include published academic studies, articles, books and databases. The first part of this study, which focusses on France as a founding member of the European Union, analyses the basic lines of French foreign policy. The roles of the French Presidents within the framework of the 1958 Constitution of the Fifth Republic are also studied while focusing on Turco-French relations in the process from the Ankara Agreement of 1963 to the application for full membership in 1987. The final part of this study explores the problematic of the tide in the relations after the Customs Union. As per the findings of this study, it is observed that principles of France in the European Union and Turkey policy are stable, but their strategies vary. It has been determined that the policies followed by the presidents of Fifth Republic France, regardless of the party they belong to, have a state policy dimension other than the party they belong to. This situation is explained by the European asymptote policy, which keeps Turkey neither in the Community nor outside it. With the exception of the approaches of Presidents Valery Giscard d'Estaing and Nicolas Sarkozy, which completely exclude Turkey from the European Union, all other presidents of the Fifth Republic have political ideologies and policies that follow a Turkish policy, and one which can be regarded as a state policy.