The problem of democracy deficit in Turkey-European Union relationships

The European Union (EU), which was established in the mid-20th century with its supranational and intergovernmental structure, has a global impact with its structure different from other institutions besides ending the war in Europe. An important problem of the EU came to light towards the end of the 20th century. It was a problem of the democracy deficit. Democracy deficit has significantly changed the structure and policies of the EU. At the basis of the democracy deficit problem, which has a multi-dimensional structure, lies the pushing of the European Parliament's legislative powers to the second plan. In addition, it stems from the deficiencies in the use of the legislative, executive and judicial powers. The EU has started a wide reform movement by making important changes in the founding treaties to tackle this problem. Although these reform movements softed the problem of democracy deficit, they were not enough. Trust in the EU among citizens of candidate countries, especially citizens of the member states, has decreased significantly. Turkey-EU relations, the establishment of the Union is based on the 1950s. Relations between the EU and Turkey should come to places in the breaking point, neither Turkey nor the EU can be separated from each other in globalized world. The Copenhagen Criteria, which is an important turning point in the membership process, determined the relations to a great extent. In order to evaluate the harmonization process with the Copenhagen Criteria, European Commission (EC) published the Progress Reports since 1998, showed the direction of bilateral relations and Turkey's membership process. In this thesis, the shortage of the basic problems of democratic deficit problem, attempting to shut out the criteria applied to candidate countries, and advocated exemplify via Turkey. By examining the EC Reports, it was mentioned that the discussions on democracy stem from the inconsistency in the policies of the Union rather than the policies of the candidate countries.