Is Turkey Ready to Be Part of the European Union?

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Turkey is a beautiful country of Western Asia. It is known for Istanbul city, the biggest city, which located on the border between two components. Although Turkey has a tight relationship with European countries and it also joins the European Union Customs Union, it is not a member of the European Union (the EU). Turkey has started its application to the EU since 1960s, but still it is not a member. In 2004, the EU announced that Turkey was an official candidate for the accession and started the negotiations. Why does it take such a long time to get accepted? According the EU’s enlargement strategy, a candidate country must fulfill Copenhagen criteria and then start the negotiation process. After completed all these conditions, it gets a membership status. As I see, Turkey should be allowed to join the EU, because Turkey can satisfy Copenhagen criteria which are democratic value, market economy, and adherence to the aims of EU regulations. Also, it already starts the negotiations with the EU.

Before arguing about why Turkey should join the EU, I’d like to present why people oppose or what are the possible counterarguments for that. Since Turkey is Muslim country, many people are doubted about its democracy and think that Turkey cannot be compatible with the western countries. But having Muslim religion does not mean that it is not democratic. Turkey’s attempt to being secular rather than being conservative was not successful before 2002. When Justice and Development Party (in Turkish, AKP) won the election in 2002, it successfully started to reform the laws and the legal systems. In the result, Turkey achieved its official candidate status in 2004. Turkey gave women political right even before some Europe...

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Hoekman, Bernard M. and Togan Subidey. Turkey: Economic Reform and Accession to the European Union. Herndon, VA, USA: World Bank Publications. 2005. Print.

Kharpal, Arjun. “Turkey eager to get married to Europe”. 25 CNBC. CNBC LLC. 5 Nov. 2013. Web. 25 April 2014.

The Republic of Turkey, Ministry of Economy. “Economy Outlook”. Ankara: Turkey Ministry of Economy. March 2014. Web. www.economy.gov.tr.

---, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The Turkey 2013 Progress Report and Enlargement Strategy Document. By The European Commission. Brussels: The European Union. 16 Oct. 2013. Print. No. 278.

Toktas, Sule and Aras, Bulent. “The EU and Minority rights in Turkey”. Political Science Quarterly. 124:4 Winter (2009-2010): 697-720. Print.

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