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

Table – 1: The Current Status of the Accession Negotiations (February 2013)

Opened and Provisionally Closed	Opened Chapters	Screening Reports Approved at the Council of the European Union with Benchmarks	Draft Screening Reports are to be Approved at the Council of the European Union
			Negotiated at the Council	Negotiated at the Commission
25.Science and Research (Austria: June 12, 2006)	20. Enterprise and Industrial Policy (Germany: March 29, 2007) 18. Statistics (Germany: June 26, 2007) 32. Financial Control (Germany: June 26, 2007) 21. Trans-European Networks (Portugal: December 19, 2007) 28.Consumer and Health Protection (Portugal: December 19, 2007) 6. Company Law (Slovenia: June 17, 2008) 7. Intellectual Property Law (Slovenia: June 17, 2008) 4. Free Movement of Capital (France: December 19, 2008) 10. Information Society and Media (France: December 19, 2008) 16. Taxation (Czech Republic: June 30, 2009) 27. Environment (Sweden: December 21, 2009) 12. Food Safety, Veterinary and Phytosanitary Policy (Spain: June 30, 2010)	1. Free Movement of Goods (Additional Protocol) 3. Right of Establishment and Freedom to Provide Services (Additional Protocol) 5. Public Procurement 8. Competition Policy 9. Financial Services (Additional Protocol) 11. Agriculture and Rural Development (Additional Protocol) 19. Social Policy and Employment 22. Regional Policy and Coordination of Structural Instruments 29. Customs Union (Additional Protocol)	2. Freedom of Movement of Workers 13. Fisheries (Additional Protocol) 14. Transport Policy (Additional Protocol) 15. Energy 23. Judiciary and Fundamental Rights 24. Justice, Freedom and Security 30. External Relations (Additional Protocol) 33. Financial and Budgetary Provisions	31. Foreign, Security and Defense Policy
The Chapters for which Turkey was invited to present and that Turkey Presented its Negotiation Position
26. Education and Culture (NPD: May 25, 2006) 17.Economic and Monetary Policy (NPD: March 9, 2007)

Note: In accordance with the decision taken by the EU General Affairs and External Relations Council on December, 11 2006, Cyprus (Additional Protocol) issue is an opening criterion for the above- mentioned 8 underlined chapters and a closing criterion for all the rest above-mentioned chapters.

Source: Republic of Turkey, Ministry for the EU Affairs. (http://www.ab.gov.tr/files/KAPB/mevcut_durum_tablo_yatay_web_en.pdf)
IV. TURKEY AS RISING POWER AND ITS EFFECTS ON THE EUROPEAN UNION RELATIONS
IV. 1. The Population of Turkey
In general, the most important indicators of national power are formed by population, geographical features, economic status, and military power.³⁷ As one of the indicator of national power, population provides the basis of demographic data that assists to make numerous economic and social policies mainly for planning and tracing the actions. Age structure of the population has greatest importance to comprehend the proportions of the age groups who contribute to the development of a country. With a simple proportionality, well directed, namely ensuring internal stability, population growth accelerates the economic growth of that country. In this context, the statistical institutions of the countries prepare several data for presenting the situation of their population in present time and for estimating their prospective population in the future. This chapter, therefore, focus on the population of Turkey. Also, the age structure of Turkey and the EU examine by comparing the indicators from Turkish Statistical Institute and Eurostat.
Compared with most of the European countries; Turkey is a large country not only in terms of its territory, but also due to the high level of population. By continuously increasing since its establishment and providing to remain dynamic and young population; Turkey can be described as an ageless country. Nevertheless, it is important to indicate here that the continual growth of population was maintained through no participation of Turkey in the Second World War.
According to the result of the census in 1927, for example, the population of Turkey was determined as 13,648,270 people that were less than the present population of Istanbul. ³⁸ Due to the results of Address Based Population Registration System in 2012, in total, there are 75,627,384 people in Turkey.

Graph – 1: Age Groups of Population of Turkey (2012)

Source: Turkish Statistical Institute, 2012.
The graph³⁹ presents the proportions of the age groups in the total population are presented below. The age group of 15-64 with 67,6% ratio defines the productive population, also so-called working ages, that makes contribution the economy of Turkey by working on various business sector areas; even though the labour force participation rate of young population, the age group of 15-24, is lower compared to the age group of 25-64. ⁴⁰

A report, known as the “Population Projections”, was published by Turkish Statistical Institute to show the augmentation level of the population in Turkey from 2013 until 2075 via introducing three distinct scenarios⁴¹ that were differentiated on the average number of children per woman by years. Considering three scenarios, the proportion of working ages will remain its importance by increasing in the future with respect to the continuous growth of population.

Population
89 172 088
93 475 575
84 247 088
76 481 847