مرکز منطقه ای اطلاع رساني علوم و فناوري - TURKEY-GERMANY RELATIONS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EUROPEAN UNION

Abstract :

Turkey wants to join the EU for a long time. However, it did not receive the candidate status until 1999. In taking decision, each member state of the EU has a position to form the accession process. For example, Germany struggled as Turkey obtained a membership perspective from the EU. For that reason, the policies of each member state concerning Turkey’s accession are quite important for Turkey s EU membership target. Our purpose is to evaluate the process of Turkey’s integration to the EU from the point of the bilateral relations between Turkey and Germany. It is also aimed to enable more understandable the projections of Germany’s policy related to Turkey’s entry into the EU, as Germany is one of the most influential play-makers in the EU. Within this framework, there are particularly two aspects concerning the relations between Turkey and Germany: 1) the attitudes of German state and political parties towards Turkey s EU membership, and 2) the role of the Turks living in Germany. The basic result reached by this study is: Germany is one of the actors that can shape the process of Turkey s integration into the EU decisively. If Turkey might achieve to produce some persuasive arguments in the line of German parties and Turkish immigrants, it could strengthen its own hand on the path of the EU membership. Here the following data sources are used: Related first-and second-hand sources; the EU Turkey progress reports; the reports and statistics of German government and state agencies on the integration of Turkish immigrants in Germany; party documents, interviews of the author carried out with some relevant politicians; the data of the Republic of Turkey Ministry of Culture and Tourism and of Turkish Statistical Institute and related articles.