The perceptional level of Turkish society about Turkey's European Union membership

European Union represents and symbolizes the transformation process of the national states, with a huge integration, consisting of historical, institutional, political, social and cultural facts; and also considered to be one of the greatest projects of our century. For Turkey, which is really willing to exist in this union and system; it is very important to realize the criterias and manage the harmonization with European Union and ?Acquis Communautaire?.The aim of this research is to specify the perception of our country?s membership to this union asking questions to different people who have different socio-cultural identities in Turkish society. Actually; Turkey has been going on westernization process with an application for membership since 1959 and Ankara agreement in 12 September 1963. Turkey?s candidacy status was declared by EU in 1999, therefore final phase of the relations has begun. New laws and regulations have been passed to dynamics of our country and by the impact of these rules, serious numbers of changes appeared and will appear in our life style, culture, economy, politics, justice system and media. Having explained the establishment of European Union, some of its institutions and Turkey-EU relations in an historical perspective, in the first part of the research, this dissertation focused on Europeanization of our country by European cohesion policy.In order to undertake an overall approach related to the cohesion of new member Turkey; we needed to take a closer look at Turkey?s position and find out how Turkish people understand and comment on ?membership of our country?. Turkish ?EU policy? was visualized in its historical depth since its systemic regularities have been functionalized in the course of a long differentiation process in periodic cycles, also marked by occasional transformation periods. In the second part of the research, the methodological point of view of the thesis is explained. As inquiry was used in this research, with 8 demographic and 30 ?EU harmonization? questions; politicians, students, academics, officers, employees, unemployed people, housewives, retired people, free workers answered those questions, using a variety of definitions and perceptions of EU membership of Turkey; so that this thesis raised a number of important results, regarding the success of Turkey and the government in preparing our country, our institutions and their readiness for structural funding. A we reached the third part of the research, we have to emphasize the truth about lack of information about European Union and Turkey?s membership, looking at the results of the answers of people of Turkish society. The capital city Ankara was chosen to make this research as the politicians (deputies/ still member of the Turkish Parliament today) live in Ankara. When we check the results of the inquiry, it is interesting and upsetting to find out that so many deputies and other sections of our society answered most of the questions saying ? no opinion? . It is a risk to accept to join such an integration without knowing ?what we are getting into and how we are supposed to adopt.? The politicians are expected to know more information and learn a lot about the period of EU Membership of our country as they make the decisions about harmonization and give the last shape of the rule and law changes.Generalizing the results of the inquiry, it is possible to see that politicians and people of different social-cultural characters do not ?agree? that our society and the societies of EU countries will become agitated and get on well with each other by means of culture and richness of national identities. Besides, our people mostly don?t believe that Euro usage will help Turkish economy to develop and become better. They don?t agree that creating common agricultural politics with EU will help us at all. Another point our society strongly disagrees is; terrorism, narcotic substances and illegal immigration will be prevented with the membership. Most of the people think that Turkey successfully managed to cope with Copenhagen Criteria.In the light of these facts it is clearly seen that, mass media has to give much more, correct and objective information about EU and Turkey?s membership. Public benefit should be protected about the applications of EU criteria. A responsible media understanding will create responsible broadcasting and responsible journalism.