Abstract:

Although the EU historically has been a leading force for preferential trade arrangements (PTAs), its main priority for the past seven years has been negotiating the WTO Doha Round agreement. Soon after the Doha Round negotiations came to a standstill in July 2006, the EU announced an ambitious agenda to enter into more PTAs. In this perspective, the effect of the EU PTA policies and strategies (especially such new initiative) on Turkey as a Customs Union partner since 1996 is a unique case. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effects of EU’s PTAs approach on EU-Turkey CU and the adoption process of Turkey to EU FTAs. It focuses on this process in terms of its legal and historical foundations and current challenges. The paper argues that under the current “aggressive regionalism” phenomenon in the global trade system, a customs union between asymmetric parties like Turkey and EU without a clear prospect for closer integration may not work properly in the long run. In addition, Turkey's memberships in several PTAs, as the result of CU framework, make its trade regime more complex and difficult to manage. Also, if an efficient mechanism is not set up to ensure proper cooperation and consultation between the parties, the new initiative of EU to FTAs will further complicate the present problems and undermine the proper functioning of CU.

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