Women entrepreneurship in Turkey and fiscal support in EU funds

Since its establishment, the aim of the European Union has been to provide financial assistance to reduce economic disparities between member states and to ensure the harmonisation of candidate countries. Turkey started to benefit from this aid as a candidate country with the Helsinki Summit in 1999. Enlargement strategy is one of the focal points of the EU and one of the cornerstones of this strategy is EU funds. These funds aim to contribute to the economic development of candidate countries as well as harmonisation with the full membership process. The European Union emphasises the importance of women entrepreneurship in terms of gender equality and economic growth. For this purpose, women entrepreneurship and employment issues play an important role in EU funds that member and candidate countries benefit from and EU funds offer various projects to support women entrepreneurship. These projects aim to increase women entrepreneurs' business start-up, training, enterprise development and market access. This study aims to examine the aspects of the funding mechanism established by the EU in the enlargement process in relation to women entrepreneurship and employment in Turkey. The study will focus on key projects and programs implemented to date that will investigate the extent to which women entrepreneurs in Turkey have benefited from EU financial assistance.