Turkey and the EU budget: prospects and issues

Abstract:

When calculating the cost of Turkish membership for the incumbent members, one must appreciate that this process is highly speculative. Not only Turkey, but also the EU are evolving and changing constantly. In addition, one cannot know with certainty what the rules concerning the budget will be by the time of accession. Nevertheless, there are ways - at least to some extent - to calculate the cost that Turkey as a fully integrated EU member would represent to the budget. The first possibility is to calculate what Turkey would receive under the Common Agricultural Policy and the Structural Funds, as a full member today. The second approach would be to calculate what the EU would have to pay by a likely accession date such as 2015, under current rules. In this context, one should not ignore transitional arrangements such as PHARE and other pre-accession programmes that Romania and Bulgaria already benefit from. Although the authors are aware of the fact that the elaborated numbers may be altered, one may say that net transfers would have a significant impact in Turkey, while being a manageable amount for the EU budget.