| Popis: |
Turkey‟s journey to Europe has been gone through a tempestuous period until now after the Ankara Agrement signed in Ankara, in 1964 to establish an association between the European Economic Community and Turkey. One of the major turning points in this journey of 54 years for Turkey as a candidate country was the linking to the Union with a Customs Union agreement. This linking made Turkey a unique country taking the Union‟s policies into consideration without being an official EU member. It was realized that the Customs Union Agrement as of 1996 has significantly impacted Turkish economy, in particular after the accession negotiations started in 2005. Turkey‟s economic model was closed till 1980. After this year, Turkey shifted its economy to an open economic model by the January 24 decisions. This liberal economic change without taking the necessary measures resulted in Turkey‟s integration and opening to foreign markets and to the World. In this study, we assessed the effects of EU-Turkey Customs Union agreement on balance payments in Turkey from 2005 through today based on the three periods of 1980-1996, 1996-2005 and 2005-2018, respectively. After the accession negotiations started in 2005, overall, Turkey‟s import and export in between 2005 and 2018 increased by 1095.1% and 1137.9%, respectively. On the other hand, foreign trade deficit was raised by 1023.2%, followed by a deficit of accounts balance of 3059.5%. Similarly, direct foreign investment to Turkey lowered from 78% to 62%. Turkish Lira is still loosing value against foreign currencies. Weak Turkish Lira against the currencies of the member countries in the EU indicates mismatches between trade and currency policies. In conclusion, we revealed that the Customs Union Agreement and accession negotiations after 2005 yielded adverse effects on balance payments in Turkey rather than positive impacts. It seems that only way for Turkey to overcome these issues is to turn its legal rights accorded by the membership and Customs Union Agrement into advantages. To realize that, it has seen that Turkey needs to perform a new economic model based on the production. |
