Is Turkey economically ready to join EU?
1. Introduction.
Turkey’s candidature for the European Union is maybe the most controversial and consequently well-analyzed of any in the history of the organization. The topics of the debate are familiar: human rights abuses, overly uppermost military, and the impact of Islam on the one hand, contrary to strategic partner, valid candidate, and the advantages of including a Muslim democracy on the other. The interaction among these factors will define Turkey’s progress toward membership over the next several years.
Notwithstanding, in theory the EU defines membership eligibility rested on a set of impartial criteria that do not take diplomatic issues into account. As Turkey has already been accepted as a part of Europe, it should be practicable to evaluate its performance as compared with these criteria and to the status of other EU candidates, past and actual, at major points in the accession process.
The economic aspects of the entry of Turkey to the European Union are of great significance and need special attention. The given paper aims to provide a short overview of Turkey’s economy and to highlight the major problems concerning GDP, agriculture, manufacturing, inflation and currency issues.


2. GDP and the economy of Turkey.
Turkey is regarded to have a less middle-income economy. Its per capita is correspondingly small contrasted to the EU. The GDP per capita in conditions of Purchasing Power (PPS) was in 2003 at 28.5% of the EU-25 medium, corresponding to the level of Bulgaria and Romania. Valued in current prices in 2003, the GDP of Turkey was comparable to about 2% of the GDP of EU-25 or just half of the ten Member States.
Turkey is distinguished by large provincial disparities which widely follow a West-East pattern. The richest areas are concentrated in the western part of the country while the poorest ones are at the eastern frontier. The richest province Kocaeli, an essential manufacturing location, has a GDP per capita of more than 90% above the national average (46% of the EU-25 average). At the other edge of the gradation, the poorest regions Agri and Van have only around one third of the national GDP per capita (8% of the EU-25 average).
These profits disparities are displayed in the sectoral structure of the areas. The richer areas have significant shares of production and occupation in manufacturing and assistance whereas in most of the other territories agriculture is the most essential derivation of income and employment.
In the late decades some macroeconomic and commercial crises took place in the country, more recently in 1994, end-1999 and early-2001. They have caused to high volatility in aggregate financial activity and interfered with the overall step of growth. Since 2001, more advances have been made in stabilizing the economy and addressing the main reasons of these crises in the last decades. This is especially visible in the resumed enlargement path and the sharply lessened inflation. Nevertheless, this stabilization process is not yet full and some imbalances, such as the broadening external shortage remain to be amended. Further accomplishment of structural reforms would not only help to escaping stabilization crisis, but also let Turkey to attain or even lift its growth potential.
Even though Turkey’s population is appropriately large, its GDP represents just over 2% of the EU-25 GDP. As a result, the favourable economic impacts of Turkey’s membership in the EU are likely to be disproportional, for instance small for the EU-25 as a whole and much bigger for Turkey. The results on the EU will very much depend on the manner the Turkish economy will be able to manage its arrangement for membership.
The admittance of Turkey would display economic defiance, and implicitly chances to all parties included.
Overall, EU Member States’ economies would advance from the admittance of Turkey, albeit only minorly. An advance of growth in Turkey should present a positive influence to EU-25 exports (Cakmak E.H., 1998).
Turkey would advance considerably from its admittance to the EU. Admittance should boost Turkey’s development basically via enlarged trade, higher contribution due to higher FDI, inflows, and higher productivity development due to a change in the sectoral arrangement of output and the accomplishment of structural renovations in line with the more competitive EU internal market setting.


3. Agriculture and agricultural policies.
Agriculture is the basic significance to Turkey, both in social and economic conditions. About half of Turkey’s territory of some 79 million hectares is occupied with agriculture, which is hardly ever in line with the EU 27 average (48%). Turkish admittance would be therefore add about 39 million hectares to the EU’s agricultural territory. This would show 23% of the EU-25 agricultural area. In 2003 roughly one third of the labour force was occupied in agriculture, and in the same year the sector showed 12.2% of GDP.
The climatic and geographical conditions across the country allow a broad sphere of various farming activities, and Turkey is a main world producer of (in no especial order) cereals, cotton, tobacco, fruit and vegetables, nuts,