The EU-Turkey Customs Union: From a Transitional to a Definitive Framework?

Abstract:

The possibility for Turkey to become a Member State of the Community is provided by the Ankara Association Agreement concluded between the parties on 12 September 1963.

The Agreement sets up one of the most comprehensive external relationships that the Community has ever established with a third country. According to the EC-Turkey association law, the customs union constitutes a transitory framework prior to complete integration between the parties.

However, academic and political works are proposing that the integration of Turkey to the EU acquires a dimension other than the accession framework. These works put forward that the EU-Turkey customs union should be conceived, not as a transitory stage preparing Turkey to a complete accession to the EU, but as a definitive framework which should continue to govern the relations without a membership perspective.

The paper strives to assess the possibility of using the EC-Turkey customs union as a definitive framework of the relations between the parties and seeks to demonstrate that such a framework proves to be not only improbable but also impossible.