Turkey’s 45-Year EU Adventure

Leaders of the 25 EU member countries will use the report as their main reference when deciding at the December 17th EU Summit whether or not to begin discussions with Turkey. Some important milestones in Turkey’s EU journey, which started in 1959, are:

July 31, 1959 – Prime Minister Adnan Menderes made the first partnership application to European Economic Community (EEC), which was founded in 1957.

September 12, 1963 – Turkey signed a cooperation agreement with the European Communities (EC), as the EU was then known. The EC consisted of the EEC, European Atomic Energy Community and the European Coal and Steel Community.

July 22, 1970 – Turkey signed an agreement foreseeing the country’s full membership with the EC.

1978-1979 – The EC invited Turkey and Greece to apply for membership together; Ankara refused. Greece became an EC member in 1981.

September 12, 1980 – Relations with the EC froze after a military coup in Turkey.

April 15, 1987 – Turkey applied for full membership to the EC.

December 18, 1989 – The Commission determined that Turkey’s membership was appropriate; however, it postponed the examination of the country’s application.

January 1, 1996 – The Customs Union was established between Turkey and the EU, which had changed its name from the EC in 1993 after the signing of the Maastricht Treaty.

December 13, 1997 – EU leaders refused to give Turkey the status of candidate country.

December 10, 1999 – Turkey was accepted as a candidate country at the EU Helsinki summit; however, many reforms still had to be realized before full membership discussions could begin.

December 12, 2002 – The EU offered to give a discussion date in December 2004 on the condition that the EU Commission report comes out positive.

January 16, 2004 – As the first EU Commission president to visit Turkey since 1963, Romano Prodi praised the improvements Turkey had made through its reforms.

September 20, 2004 – The EU declared that if the Turkish Penal Code (TCK) draft were not approved, discussions would not start.

September 21,2004 – Incoming EU Commission President Jose Manuel Durao Barroso disclosed that Turkey would not be refused if they met all the requirements.

September 23, 2004 – EU Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen met with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Brussels and disclosed that Turkey had nothing more to do in order to start discussions.