Towards The Integration of Turkey with Europe: Customs Union
Emine Tirali, PhD

Abstract
This paper deals with the historical and political process of the accession of Turkey to the Customs Union which is an important milestone for the EU-Turkey relations. The positive and negative consequences of the Customs Union Agreement in terms of Turkey are not involved in our study. In this study, the manner how this process was executed and conducted is mentioned. The Prime Minister Ciller thought that the most important problem of Turkey was to integrate not only the economically but also politically with the world and Turkey would have an "exceptional" place for the full-membership among other candidate countries and increase its chance for the membership if Turkey completed its Customs Union. How was the history of the integration process of Turkey with the EU ? What was the aim of the ruling party of Turkey to join the Customs Union? How did the opposition parties, industrial circles, institutions and trade unions react to the accession to the Customs Union with the EU within this period of time? What kinds of criticism did they made in this regard? How did the academics evaluate this process? Also, how did the international community and the EU-member states evaluate the EU membership of Turkey under the Customs Union? What sorts of problems did they create against Turkey? Did Turkey achieve its targets after the accession to the Customs Union? In this study, these topics will be discussed in detail.

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