Implementation of European Union NUTS system in Turkey: Testing no-menclature of territorial units for statistics (IBSS)

Reduction of the disparities of income distribution and employment between countries and regions are the primarily issues within the context of economical integration and social development policies of European Union. Regional policy of European Union aims to obviate the interregional disequilibrium and decrease the disparities of life conditions with the policies (which have been) developed for this goal.Zoning system has been constituted within the full members of European Union in order to remove regional disparities between the full members of European Union and to fulfill the purpose of merging on the common base, to make the underdeveloped regions utilized from the European Union funds. It is aimed to make the quality of data belonging to the all region and sub-region being comparable and to determine the regional disparities with this system. System is used shortly as NUTS (No-menclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) in Eropean Union.NUTS have been taken place as a priority target within the full and equal participation and adaptation process of Turkey. In this context, the process of NUTS (No-menclature of Territorial Units for Statistics) has been begun at April 2001, legalized in 2002 by SPO (State Planning Organization, T.R. Prime Ministry) and TSI (Turkish Statistical Institute, Prime Ministry Republic of Turkey).Conceptual framework has been discussed, and then regional development policies of European Union and Turkey have been underlined. The information about the general characteristics, structures and organizations of development agency and the latest aspects of development agencies which have been just established in Turkey have been identified. The foundation criterion and implementation types of the NUTS has been identified in European Union and Turkey.A comparative analysis of the foundation criterion of NUTS in European Union and the foundation criterions of NUTS-2 level regions which are the basic target of the European Union funds to be used in Turkey have been done as a basic structure of this study. It has been observed at the end of the study that half of the regions at NUTS-2 level in Turkey exactly overlap with the basic principles of European Union NUTS. As a distinctive addition of this study, it is determined that quarter of the regions at NUTS-2 level in Turkey do not ensure the basic principles of European Union NUTS which are mentioned as population threshold and per capita GDP.Although one third of the regions at NUTS-2 level in Turkey overlap with the basic principles of NUTS in European Union, these regions do not determined as `homogenous regions?, because of the fact that homogenous development levels of provinces in these regions do not reach the European Union level and they do not come together in conformance with transportation, trade, function. Consequently, it is important and essential that the classification of NUTS in Turkey should be overviewed again and should be cross-checked by the State Planning Organization and other related public institutions.