The other side of the coin: the growing opposition in turkey against to the european union accession

VI.3. Customs Union between the European Union and Turkey
As a result of long term preparations and dialogues, Customs Union is a phase of the integration process which was initiated Ankara Agreement in 1963. In this regard, the Customs Union (CU) is not a separated agreement. In accordance with the Decision of the Association Council, CU was adopted 6 March 1995 at the meeting of the Turkey - EU Association Council and trade integration between Turkey and the EU has been continuing since 1 January 1996. ¹⁵⁷ Today`s Minister of Customs and Trade of Turkey, Hayati Yazıcı, defines the CU as “The CU was something more than just a typical customs union since it has imposed the obligation to align national legislation (concerning trade, competition, intellectual and industrial property rights, patent and customs) with that of the EU. With the enforcement of the CU in 1996, the Customs Administration has considerably improved its structure, quality of service, implementation of legislation and dissemination of customer-focused service approach.”¹⁵⁸
Even though Turkey has benefited from this trade integration, the criticisms in terms of CU are increasing in parallel with the disinclination of accession to the EU in Turkey. Unlike the beginnings of the dialogues, the critiques towards the CU occurred over the time. The reason was; several leaders of Turkish Trade Unions were more interested in their own benefits then the country’s benefits in general during 1994-1995. From the end of the 1980s and the middle of 1990s, the Turkish Trade Unions could not reveal any attitudes or show any reactions. Therefore, many people in Turkey did not actually know what the CU will bring to Turkey or take. The results started to be seen clearly from the beginning of 2000s.
At the end of 2001, Confederation of Turkish Trade Unions (in short TÜRK-İŞ) presented a report named AB Türkiye’den Ne İstiyor (What EU wants from Turkey) to former Turkish President Ahmet Necdet Sezer that comprised the relations between the national interests of Turkish workers and the foreign policies of Turkey.¹⁵⁹ At that time, the report of TÜRK-İŞ considered as a major step for the democratization of Turkey; because it was the first time that TÜRK-İŞ would like to present its ideas in the matter of foreign relations. Prof. Manisalı explains this action as TÜRK-İŞ had concerns about the national interest of Turkey in terms of the CU.¹⁶⁰ It should not be understood as TÜRK-İŞ does not support the accession of Turkey to the EU. In contrast the Confederation would like to see Turkey as a member state of the EU and it declares its full support to Turkey’s EU accession process.¹⁶¹ In fact, the support of TÜRK-İŞ is based on the social policies, trade union rights and freedoms which directly affecting the working-life. As one of the biggest civil society organizations in Turkey, TÜRK-İŞ presents its expectations and demands from the EU. In short, TÜRK-İŞ expects to be taken into account for establishing social and democratic Turkey and be treated same as the member states of the EU “in terms of benefiting fully from trade union rights and freedoms and realization of industrial democracy at the work places.”¹⁶² The Confederation also underlines that “the most fundamental reform to be demanded from our country must be trade union rights and freedoms.”¹⁶³
On the other hand, it is necessary to state here the questionnaire which was based on five simple yes or no questions; replied by 3000 of TÜRK-İŞ members and titled as “TÜRK-İŞ Community Supports the EU Membership, but…” The answer of the first question presents the reason why the Confederation supports the EU. “TÜRK-İŞ community supports the social values of EU and believes that the idea of “Social Europe” is the only alternative against the wild–capitalism.” This sentence should be considered very serious because it shows that for them there are only two options, namely Social Europe and wild-capitalism. TÜRK-İŞ has a positive approach to Socialism. It criticizes the privatizations and complains about the “neo-liberal policies of the IMF and the World Bank”.¹⁶⁴Another important result of the questionnaire is the belief that Turkey should not fulfil all the current requests of the EU because of finding unnecessary to fulfil the country based requests of the EU member countries. The questionnaire presents that the members of Confederation are sceptical about EU, have concerns about the future decisions and do not trust to EU. There is no doubt that the determination of Prof. Manisalı was right. Just like in 2001, the concerns of TÜRK-İŞ about the EU and the CU remain the same that can be seen in this simple questionnaire.
In addition to the statements of Turkish officials, these were given in early chapters, the Minister of Customs and Trade of Turkey underlines the impacts of the CU to the Turkish economy by taking into consideration the studies about the differences between the exports and imports levels of Turkey. “... the studies that examine exports and imports separately have come to the conclusion that although the CU increases imports, it does not lead to a substantial increase of exports. ... the contribution of CU’s static impacts to economic growth is either insignificant or even negative. When we also add the losses in tariff revenues CU appears to have had a detrimental effect on the Turkish economy. In conclusion, the literature on the CU’s static impacts¹⁶⁵ suggests that there is indeed a trade creation-effect, but not in Turkey’s favour.”¹⁶⁶