V. INTEREST LEVEL OF TURKEY TO THE EUROPEAN UNION ACCESSION The European Union was initially established as an economic union by six founding countries and transformed step by step also as a political union through a series of treaties. The EU enlarged once again, by reaching its current size of 28 member countries, with the accession of Croatia on 1 July 201374 and it continues to enlarge through the prospective accession of new member states.
As El-Agraa stated that “the EU is the most prominent scheme of international economic integration”75 and it became more a political union with the Maastricht Treaty which introduced “institutional changes and developing political competences”.76 These institutional changes and political competences were strengthened and modified through the Amsterdam Treaty77 which also presented a stronger unity. Today, the union continues to establish a European identity to become beyond only economic and political union; but also a cultural union.
In terms of the EU institutions and bodies as well as the EU symbols78; the union is governed as a national state by reminding a federation system. Furthermore, the mechanism of the EU is mostly based on the each member states` population. It is easier to explain this mechanism on the example of the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. For this reason, the weighting of votes of the EU member countries is presented on the next page to clarify the importance of the population in this issue.
