1

ASSOCIATION STATUS AND THE PATH TO MEMBERSHIP

Christopher Brewin

'Turkey demonstrated its confidence in its traditional European vocation, and the
European Community its desire to be present in the Mediterranean.' Emile Noel1

On 18 March 2004, Frits Bolkestein told the Dutch Parliament that Europe's obligation to
Turkey stemmed from the Treaty of Ankara in 1963, 'You cannot tell a country which has
applied for membership (sic) forty years ago, "Sorry, we're closed". That would be an
unseemly policy'. Turkey's Association Agreement with the European Economic
Community was, he said, meant to 'facilitate the accession of Turkey to the Community
at a later date'. Coming from the Commissioner for the internal market, his
accompanying prediction that accession talks would begin in 2006 is indicative of the
Commission's present positive appreciation of Turkey's political reforms. The
Commissioner's personal change of mind can be documented; in his recent book, The
limits of Europe, he took the same line as many Centre-Right politicians in depicting
Turkey as a buffer protecting Europe from Syria, Iran, and Iraq. The moral argument
from long-standing Association is currently salient because it undermines the appealing
argument that closing the door to Turkey will preclude further applications to an already
extended European Union. Turkey has been promised since 1963 that its membership
will be considered in good faith once its economy can meet the competitive pressures of a
Customs Union. Article 28 reads,
As soon as the operation of this Agreement has advanced far enough to justify
envisaging full acceptance by Turkey of the obligations arising out of the Treaty
establishing the Community, the Contracting Parties shall examine the possibility
of the accession of Turkey to the Community.
As this obligation has a treaty basis, that adds a legal dimension to the 'moral obligation
and historic opportunity' with which the Madrid Summit in 1995 committed the European
Union to consider applications from the countries of Central and Eastern Europe.

However, the historical argument will lose its impact unless the nuances of the record are
respected. For example, Commissioner Bolkestein should not have claimed that forty
years ago Turkey applied for membership. It is one thing to say that all sides in the
Turkish Grand National Assembly wanted to 'join the Community' – the words are those
of Ismet Inönü, then leader of the Opposition. 2 But because neither Greece nor Turkey
could meet the obligations of Community membership, they applied not for membership
as a European country under Article 237 but for an Association under Article 238. At the
time one of the supposed advantages of Association was its flexibility, in that there was
no doctrine establishing the content of Association. This paper will discuss the diplomacy
by which the meaning of Association was fleshed out. Like the Treaty of Rome, the
Treaties of Athens and Ankara were framework treaties (traités-cadre) whose content was
in large part left to be decided in the going.
1
Osman Akyar and Okan Aktan, eds., Economic relations between Turkey and the European Community:
report of seminar October 11-14, 1976, Ankara: Hacattepe University, 1978, pg 1
2
Selim Ilkin, 'A history of Turkey's Association with the European Community' in Evin,
Ahmet and Denton, Geoffrey, eds,(1990) Turkey and the European Community Opdalen:
Luske and Budrich
 2

1. The origins of Article 238 on Association

'Association' according to the Treaty of Rome is open to any third state, any union of
states or any international organisation. Possible candidates would plausibly have been
the United Kingdom, the French Union and the Organisation of European Economic Co-
operation. As British historians and diplomats generally deny that Association status was
intended for the UK, it is worth looking at some evidence.

Attached to the Treaty of Paris establishing the Coal and Steel Community is a
'Convention containing the Transitional Provisions'. Section 14 calls upon the Member
States to open negotiations 'with the governments of third countries, and particularly with
the British government'. After the Washington conference in September 1951 the British
had requested 'the closest Association' with the European Coal and Steel Community. 3
They used the same words on 23 August 1952 in announcing the accreditation of a
permanent delegation to the Community. In November 1952, British representatives met
as a Joint Committee with officials of Monnet's newly appointed High Authority rather
than with Member States. In December 1953 Monnet formally proposed that coal and
steel be traded between Britain and his now established Community under common rules
watched over by a Council of Association. An Agreement was signed on 21 December
1954 and ratified in September 1955. Its Standing Council had no supra-national powers,
being able to commission studies, establish sub-committees and, 'where appropriate',
concert action.. British officials also rejected the democratic underpinning suggested by
the ECSC Common Assembly that a joint consultative committee be composed of nine
British members of Parliament and nine parliamentarians from the Common Assembly.
The possibility of a British Association with the EEC continued even after the UK chose
to apply instead for full membership. Iacovos Tsalicoglou says that the French
negotiators on the Association with Greece were concerned not to establish any
precedents from which the British might benefit; and that the British after their 1961
application wanted to preclude any pre-accession period without a time limit that might
resemble Association.4 In 1963 and in 1967 the British Government was dismissive of de
Gaulle's communiqués publicly suggesting that Association would suit the United
Kingdom better than membership.

2. Multilateral Association
The first battle over the meaning of Association in the Treaty of Rome also involved
Britain. In 1959 Reginald Maudling led the attempt to subsume the EEC6 in a
multilateral industrial free-trade Association with other Member States of the OEEC.
Although couched in terms of an Association between the EEC and other members of the
OEEC, the British aim was more far-reaching than the 'reciprocal rights and obligations,
common actions and special procedures' envisaged by Article 238. The British concept
of a lightly administered industrial free trade area would have undermined the
Community's new institutions and projected Common Agricultural Policy. The episode is
important to understanding the Turkish Association for three reasons.

3
Michael Palmer (1959) European Organisations, London: PEP, pgs 284 -293.
4
Tsalicoglou, Iacovos S. (1995) Negotiating for entry: the accession of Greece to the European
Community Aldershot: Dartmouth, pg 146-147
 3

The first is that Commission President Walter Hallstein wrote two long memoranda in
1959 to fill the doctrinal vacuum surrounding the concept of Association.
The problem facing the Community, which consists of finding a form of
Association with the eleven other members of the O.E.E.C., is not only difficult to
solve but also one of primary importance from the economic as well as from the
political point of view.5
While recognising the need to accommodate the 'particular solidarity among the
European nations of the OEEC' there is the need 'to give the Europe of the Six a
powerful economic fabric which could subsequently be filled in on the political plane'.
This linkage between the economic fabric of the customs union plus agricultural policy
and the political aim of establishing a parliamentary federation was to lead to the clash
with France of the Luxembourg crisis of 1965-66. Hallstein is clear in Paragraph 147
that multilateral Association must not dilute the obligations of membership,
…a policy of cooperation towards non-member countries and in particular with
the European countries; and on the other hand to defend the framework of the
Treaty of Rome…does not mean that Association is to be sought at any price…
On the question of institutions, Hallstein cannot even contemplate a future Association in
which each Associated country is to be equal. The EEC6 is to act as a single unit within
any Association, as implicitly set out in Article 238. Whether the OEEC11 choose to act
as one or as eleven is of less concern. Hallstein is similarly committed to the newly
realised common external tariff and the projected agricultural policy, thereby supporting
French objections expressed the previous year to the scope and rhythm of the British
proposals.

The second reason why the Maudling discussions affected Turkey and Greece was that
Hallstein's memoranda refer explicitly to them. The memorandum of 26 February 1959
offered the less developed European countries special customs and quotas, loans from the
European Investment Bank, and long-term contracts by which, for example, French and
Italian monopolies would purchase Balkan-type tobacco. Both Turkey and Greece felt
neglected by Maudling. They would have been even more disturbed if they had known
that the British would ask Portugal but not themselves to join the 'other six' in the future
European Free Trade Association. At the Council of Europe on 27 April, 1959 Mr Sener
identified both Greece and Turkey as under-developed,
For the under-developed countries of the Council of Europe which are not
members of the European Economic Community, the present crisis in the
negotiations for a European Economic Association is particularly grave…I do
want it to be realized that all the people living in South-Eastern Europe, who are
anxious to join their more prosperous neighbours in the North-West in a unified
and flourishing European Economic Association, do not wish to see, on the one
hand, two sets of arrangements develop between the Six and the "other Six" or
even, on the other hand, forget entirely the present needs of our corner of Europe.
Turkey and Greece participated in a joint memorandum by four countries suggesting that
agriculture be included in any free trade area with protection for their infant industries for
25-30 years, and financial aid.
5
Commission, 1st General Report on the activities…January 1st – September 17th, 1959, #146, pgs 112-126.
 4

The third reason was that the failure of the OEEC countries provided an incentive to the
EEC to achieve a diplomatic success. On 24 September 1959 Hallstein told the European
Parliamentary Assembly that abandoning the notion of a multilateral Association opened
the way for bilateral Associations,
C'est au fond cette même attitude qui nous a incités à recommander avec succès
au Conseil d'entamer des conversations avec la Grèce et la Turquie en vue d'une
Association6.
Paragraph 3 of the following British Foreign Office paper written in 1972 by Oliver
Goulden puts this point in what would today be politically incorrect language. Although
Goulden's purpose was to establish a British view on the Community's future relationship
with South-east Europe, Leslie Fielding, the future Director-General of the Community's
external relations, decided that this was not then necessary.

'European Integration: what to do with the Greeks and Turks'7

1. From the point of view of European integration, Greece and Turkey are both
problem countries. They are in a number of ways significantly different from the
West European countries and yet they have two special claims to be involved in
any future developments in Western Europe.
2. Firstly, they are already members of all the important Western groupings
except WEU…Their membership of the European clubs is important for what
they get out of it in terms of aid, commercial privileges, security and political
solidarity. It is also a symbol of their basic European aspiration and of what
distinguishes them from surrounding Slavs and Arabs.
3. Secondly, they have the right, unlike all the other associate members, to full
membership of the EEC. The reason for this privilege, which is absent from the
other Association Agreements is that the negotiations which led up to the Treaties
of Ankara and Athens took place in the early 1960s at a time when the EEC badly
needed an external diplomatic success following the breakdown of talks with
EFTA and was anxious to keep within the letter of the GATT. As a result, Greece
and Turkey received highly favourable treatment and their tariff preferences were
placed (to satisfy GATT) in the framework of an eventual customs union.

6…It will be necessary for HMG [Her Majesty's Government] to devise a policy,
together with their EEC partners, which protects our essential interests in Greece
and Turkey but at the same time does not deflect or distort the institutions of the
EEC.

The 'other Association Agreements' to which Mr Goulden refers are mainly those with
the ex-colonies of Member-States. Towards the end of the negotiations on the Treaty of
Rome, Part IV 'On the Association of the Overseas Countries and Territories' was added.
This Association status is confined to the 'non-European countries and territories which
have special relations with Belgium, France, Italy and the Netherlands'. Lest there be any
doubt that special relations meant only past colonial links, Annex IV lists the countries

6
Commission, 1st General Report on the activities January 1 – September 17, 1959, pgs 131-2
7
Public Record Office, WO.208-2953
 5

which may choose to establish 'close' economic relations with the Community as a whole.
The anachronistic importance ascribed to this neo-imperialism can be gauged from a
resolution of the European Parliamentary Assembly on 27 June 1958,
While it [the EPA] is ready to approve the conclusion of an economic Association
with the other European states, it will not agree to the merging of the
Communities in a larger whole in which they, as well as the associated countries
and territories, would lose the benefits of the economic and political integration
now being undertaken.
While Hallstein quotes this resolution with approval, to us it seems a different age when
an Assembly of national parliamentarians could have remained so imperialist as to
believe that future integration with former colonies would be possible.

Finally, this emphasis on integrated institutions is relevant in another way to Article 238.
Unlike the Charters of the United Nations and the Council of Europe, the Treaty of Rome
contains no provision allowing third countries or international organisations the status of
observers. Perhaps it was feared that the United States or the United Nations might
exercise undue influence if allowed to contribute views without a vote. In interpreting
Article 238, the Commission and sovereignty-minded countries were concerned that non-
members be treated as third countries dealing with the Community as a bloc. The
alternative interpretation in which Associates might be allowed to be present, as became
the practise with future members awaiting the ratification of their Accession treaties, was
not entertained.

3. Bilateral Association
Greek and Turkish accounts of their Association Agreements are uninterested in the
plethora of contemporary applications for Association from Arabs and neutrals. Iacovos
S. Tsalicoglou and Selim Ilkin are typical in pointing up the linkage between the Greek
application in July 1959 and the Turkish application six weeks later. Both are recorded in
the successive paragraphs, 371-2, of the Commission's annual Report for 1959. 8 Yet
neither author chooses to notice the preceding Paragraph 370.

3. #370 'The Council, having been informed by the European Commission that a
request for Association might be received from Tunisia, decided at its session of 2
February 1959 that there was no objection to such an Association. In consequence
the European Commission was able to undertake a first round of exploratory
conversations with the Tunisian authorities.
Tunisia never became an Associate. Although in 1968 the Council mandated the
Commission to negotiate five-year agreements with Tunisia and Morocco 'which will
constitute a first step towards full Association,9 the March 1969 agreements did not
envisage Association. Instead of the 'ever-closer links' of Association there is merely
'ever closer cooperation'. In separate letters of December 1961 the neutral countries of

8
Commission, 3rd General Report on the activities… March 1959 – May 1960, #370-373
9
Commission, 2nd General Report [after merger of the Communities] on the activities of the Communities,
1968, Feb 1969, chapter iv, #491
 6

Austria, Sweden and Switzerland also requested negotiations under Article 238. 10 De
Gaulle however would not permit them the right to choose not to implement obligations
in time of war. Nevertheless the bicommunal Government of Non-Aligned Cyprus
requested by letter of 10 December 1962 negotiations for Association under Article 238;
on 24 January 1963 the Council agreed to initiate the appropriate [#238] procedure in
respect of Cyprus.11 However after the veto on Britain's application that same month, the
Cypriots lost interest in their European vocation until 1972. In the case of a similarly
motivated application from Malta, the Commission initially offered a special protocol
instead of Association.12 On 4 October 1966, Israel asked the Council to replace the trade
agreement expiring 30 June 1967 with an Association Agreement. The Commission held
exploratory talks 23-26 January 1967 on condition this did 'not prejudice the form of any
agreement'. Although Association was not pursued, the agricultural and industrial
concessions to Israel have been, due to German and Dutch guilt about wartime treatment
of Jews, consistently been more generous than to Arab, Iberian or Associated
Mediterranean countries.

4. Turkish motivation for Association

The motivations of Turkish elites for seeking Association were remarkably similar to those of
Greece. Both modernising countries were concerned to assert their status as fully European. At
the signing ceremony of the treaty of Ankara, the President of the Commission pleased his
hosts in the ceremonial hall of the Grand National Assembly by underlining the promise on
which this paper is pegged. He said,
Turkey is a part of Europe…one day the final step is to be taken: Turkey is to be a
full member of the Community. This wish, and the fact that it is shared by us and
our Turkish friends alike, is the strongest expression of our community of interest.
Vice prime minister Turhan Fevzioglu responded on the same theme, linking the word
'Associate' with the word Member'.
The efforts Turkey has been making for a long time to be a European State
reached a new victory by the Agreement. Turkey's desire to participate in the
European Economic Community as an Associate Member was not based only on
short term and simple foreign trade calculations. It confirms that Turkey shares
the same destiny with the free West and that European borders are drawn through
Eastern and southern Turkey.13

The Assembly and Senate gave virtually unanimous approval to the Treaty of Ankara.
The leader of the Opposition and Ataturk's successor, Ismet Inönü, was able to overcome
his own doubts by saying in Hallstein's hearing in September 1963 that he approved of
the Association being 'European' and 'economic' and 'for ever'. The foreign minister,
Feridun Cemal Erkin, who had devoted himself over eighteen months to breaking the
deadlock in the negotiations, was more cautious,
10
Commission, 6th General Report on the Activities of the Community, 1 May 1962 –31 March 1963, June
1963, 259
11
Commission, 6th General Report on the Activities of the Community, 1 May 1962 –31 March 1963, June
1963, #247
12
ibid
13
Yücel Bozdağlioğlu, Turkish foreign policy and Turkish identity: a constructivist approach, London:
Routledge, 2003 pg. 69
 7

There is no doubt that this agreement is essentially an economic document.

However, it is also certain that it constitutes a turning point in the life of the
Turkish nation as a political document. A new era is opening for Turkey…an era
that confirms and approves Turkey's desire to be part of Europe.
However, in the context of complimenting the Community on largely overcoming the
difficulties of establishing a Customs Union leading to political integration, he
prophetically went on to say that for Turks these difficulties 'are only beginning.'

In terms of political integration, the major long-term difficulty would be that the Greek
and Turkish applications were made in a spirit of rivalry, not reconciliation. Neither
Greek nor Turkish officials saw in the EEC an opportunity for themselves to emulate the
Franco-German discourse of equality and reconciliation. Greeks were not present at the
signing ceremony in Ankara, and Turks had not been present at the ceremonies
celebrating the Treaty of Athens. Although the acrimony of the incidents in Salonika and
Istanbul in 1955 had been overcome by the personal efforts of Evangelos Averoff and
Fatin Rüstü Zorlu in agreeing on a Constitution for a bicommunal Cyprus that would join
NATO, the Turkish application was stimulated by fear of being left behind. 'If the
Greeks had not applied,' writes Mehmet Ali Birand, 'Turks would have taken much
longer to decide what they wanted'. 14 In 1960 Greece had joined the Commission in
trying to put the Turkish Association on a different basis from that which they had
obtained for themselves. In the autumn of 1963 the new Papandreou government in
Greece had turned away from Averoff's line that any problem in Cyprus could be ironed
out if there were good relations between Greece and Turkey.15

Greece and Turkey also saw themselves as economic rivals in promoting industries under
license while competing for agricultural export markets in figs, raisins and tobacco.
Income per capita was $200 for the 27 million Turks and $322 for 8 million Greeks at a
time when West Germans earned on average $967. In 1958 the Turkish lira had been
devalued. The following table shows that the Turkish deficit in trade was less than that
for Greece although both deficits were high in relation to turnover.

Greek and Turkish balance of payments (million dollars)16

1959 1960 1961 1962
Imports 531.7 470 520.4 468 585.1 510 661.1 601
Exports 242.8 354 208.6 321 234.3 327 234.3 381
Trade balance -288.9 -116 -311.8 -147 -350.8 -183 -350.8 -220

Shortage of hard currency was the major impediment to industrialisation. As remittances

from migrant labour were then just beginning, both governments actively sought aid from
Western governments. To put the annual aid from the EEC of $25m into context, David
Barchard gives the following figures for US aid to Turkey for the preceding period and
for aid from the OECD consortium for the subsequent period. 'From 1948-59 Turkey

14
Mehmet Ali Birand 'Turkey's Long march towards the EEC' in Jacques Thobie et Salgur Kançal, eds.,
Turquie, Moyen-Orient, Communauté Européenne Paris: l'Harmattan, 1989 pg. 267.
15
Christopher Brewin, The European Union and Cyprus, Huntingdon: the Eothen Press, 2000, pg 163.
16
Sources: OECD Greece August 1963, table 8, pg. 13;Turkey May 1963 table 14, pg. 46.
 8

received from the USA $1,210m in economic aid, of which 58% were grants. The value
of US military aid was presumably larger…In 1962 the OECD Consortium promised
Turkey $1,160m 1962-1970'.17 Semih Günver's team of economists therefore were keen
to secure the same concessions as had been made to Greece. However, Ziya Müezzinoğlu
was appointed to the new State Planning Organisation to co-ordinate their approach with
that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Tozun Bahçeli sums up the Turkish consensus
that economic considerations were important but subordinate,
The decision to seek Associate membership (sic) was not based on comprehensive
studies of the implications for the Turkish economy and development strategy of
the envisaged customs union. For Turkish policy-makers, the Association initially
had greater importance as a step towards the realisation of Turkey's long-range
aspiration to become an integral part of Europe.18

5. The response of the Commission, COREPER and the Parliamentary Assembly

For the youthful officials of the EEC Commission, the applications were a tribute to the
50% increase in inter-state trade they had witnessed in the first two years of the
Community's existence. They were flattered that Greece wanted to establish a Customs
Union over twelve years on the model to which they were working. Commissioner Jean
Rey could have scuppered the idea by suggesting that receipts from levies and tariffs go
to Brussels to fund the Association. Instead he expressed doubts on the meaning of
integration with a poor country and the concomitant dangers to the economic and
institutional integration of the EEC,
The absence of balance, even from the legal point of view, between the
commitments the Community would undertake vis-à-vis Greece and those that
Greece would undertake towards the Community…raised the question whether
real integration was possible between the Common Market in its present stage and
a country in course of development.
A simple cooperation and aid agreement might better meet Greek needs than the entirely
new conditions implicit in any commitment to economic integration.
Integration means...advantages and disciplines...a clear decision on the course to
be followed, coupled with mutual agreement to follow given paths, and these
make of it a formula which is constructive in a way entirely different from that of
a simple co-operation agreement. This integration had, of course, to be brought
about progressively, so that the Greek economy could adapt itself to entirely new
conditions. 19
To make integration work on given paths Greece, unlike Member States, would be
allowed actually to raise selected tariffs to 'protect young industries', to subsidise new
industries and, in the second ten-year stage, to retain a third of the protective tariffs.
Greece was given the same right as Members to ask the Commission to authorise
'safeguard' measures in the event of unforeseen difficulty, and also assured that its
interests would be protected on the same basis as a Member State in the event of another
state becoming a Member or Associate.

17
David Barchard, Turkey and the West London: Routledge, 1985, pgs 79-80
18
Tozun Bahçeli, 'Turkey and the EEC: the strains of Association' Revue d'Intégration Européenne/
Journal of European Integration, 2, January 1980, p.222
19
Commission, Fourth General Report on the Activities…1960-1961, #200
 9

However, the Observers appointed by the Member States' Permanent Representatives

(COREPER) were fully conscious that two of the three paragraphs in Article 238 concern
their powers of agreement and ratification. Greece and Turkey would be a treated
separately as external sovereign third parties on the international law model, and not as
Associate Members in a club on the constitutional (van Gend) model. Until a late stage it
was not clear that the Commission would be represented in the Association Council. It
was only after the conclusion of the Athens Treaty that the Community established its
own rules of procedure for the Association Council and any sub-committees which that
Council might establish. These rules made it crystal clear that, as with ex-colonies, the
Community as a unit would establish its own common position before meeting with
Greece. Greek sovereign determination to avoid subordination to the Member States'
Court of Justice in Luxemourg contributed to preserving the international relations model
in the case of Turkey. Dispute settlement in the Treaty of Athens was left ambiguous,
referring to settlement by an existing body 'such as the European Court of Justice' or
alternatively, one arbitrator from each side with, for the first five years, the President of
the ECJ to be the third arbitrator.

The Community's generosity was explicitly limited by the need to prevent serious harm
to sectoral interests in the EEC6 which might frustrate the development of the common
market and its institutions. Including Mediterranean agriculture, the lion's share of Greek
exports to the Six, should not have 'harmful effects on the readiness with which the
member countries carried out their commitments and on the good functioning of the
Treaty of Rome'. To ensure the attainment of the Common Agricultural Policy, Greece
had to agree to quotas and tariffs on wine, citrus fruits, peaches, and grapes. Free
movement of labour could not be negotiated multilaterally for at least twelve years;
Turkey negotiated bilateral labour agreements with Germany in 1961, with the
Netherlands and Belgium in 1964, with France in 1965, and with Denmark in 1973.

Democracy was not a requirement for Association. The Parliamentary Assembly's right
of consultation under Article 238 meant nothing in practise until the Court of Justice'
judgement in the Isoglucose case. The Birkelbach Report of December 1961 asserting
that future members and associates should have similar political practises to the EEC6,
was an expression of frustration which did not bring the parliamentarians any more
consultation before they accepted the subsequent treaty of Ankara. The Greek Colonels'
coup did not result in a suspension of the Association although Greek parliamentarians
could not meet in the Joint Delegation, and there was belatedly a suspension of
negotiations on furthering the Association.

Given our present perception of the similarity of content between the treaties of Athens
and Ankara, it is necessary to point out that at the time of the signature of the Treaty of
Athens, important figures both in the EEC and Greece did not want the Association with
Turkey to be on the same lines as that for Greece. De Gaulle's foreign minister, Couve de
Murville, presented the treaty of Athens to the French National Assembly in December
1961 as a singleton, 'Je déclare très nettement que ceci ne constitue par conséquent pas
un précedent'.20
20
Débats, Assemblée Nationale, 6 December 1961, pg 5345.
 10

6. Negotiating the treaty of Ankara

Nevertheless, the treaty of Ankara is so closely modelled on the treaty of Athens that it
has to be explained why it took took longer to negotiate than the two years of Athens - 77
days of formal talks in ten rounds of negotiations from 28 Sept 1959 to 25 June 1963.
Part of the answer lies in the disruption caused by the military coup and the impact on the
EEC6 of the trial and execution of the Prime Minister and foreign minister. However, the
third negotiating session was only postponed from 27 May to 14-21 October 1960. The
principal problem was that Ambassador Tevfik Saraçoğlu had to withstand consistent
pressure from the Community, supported by a hostile Greece, to accept a trade and
cooperation agreement of the type that would become the norm in the Community's
Global Mediterranean Policy.

The first three negotiating sessions were mainly taken up with Turkey as the demandeur
setting out and documenting its case. Like Greece, and unlike the neutrals and
Mediterranean Arab countries, Turkey wanted Association to be a step towards
membership rather than an alternative to it. Like Greece, and unlike the UK, Turkey was
not prepared to take on such obligations of membership as setting agricultural prices
above world prices, or removing all tariff protection. Like Greece, Turkey therefore
wanted the form of Association to be a Customs Union of unlimited duration, perceived
as the economic basis of European integration.

However the Turkish thesis was that Turkey as a poor country would continue to apply
all existing protective measures for twenty-five years. This went much further than the
Greek demand to continue protection of the products most sensitive to competition for a
period of twenty two years. The initial Turkish demands on trade were that Turkey
should benefit from the same reductions as were being progressively applied within the
EEC, that Member State restrictions on capital exports to Turkey should be removed, and
that financial aid be provided from the Community budget and the European Investment
Bank.

Ambassador Tevfik Saraçoğlu, the Turkish negotiator, was told during the second
negotiating session 2-4 December 1959 that it would not be acceptable for Turkey to
request participation in the Common Agricultural Policy as it was still being formulated. 21
The Turkish side accepted this, not complaining that this reversed the Community's
stance in the earlier Maudling talks that agriculture be included. Turkey was not
intending to export wheat or meat, and indeed after 1967 was to accept food aid from the
Community. What concerned Semih Günver’s economic team were Italian and French
quotas and tariffs on Mediterranean products which might be included in a later version
of the CAP as a common organisation of unsubsidised markets - citrus, figs and tobacco.
No other country competed with Turkey's exports of hazelnuts.

More important was Mr Seeliger's insistence that Turkey would have to take on
obligations to prepare for competition. GATT Article XXIV required reciprocity and 'a

21
Notes taken at a course given by Tevfik Saraçoĝlu at Marmara University. See also his book, Türkiye ile
Avrupa Ekonomik Topluluĝu Arasında Bir Ortaklık Yaratan Anlaşma: 1959-1963, 1, Istanbul: IKV, 1981
 11

reasonable time' for the completion of mutual reductions if any Customs Union were to
be exempted from the GATT requirement to extend any concessions to one country to all
GATT members. This was a serious objection, as in those days the EEC was not yet
sufficiently strong to defy the GATT most-favoured-nation rule by granting different
trade concessions to different categories of trade partner. The Treaty of Ankara was so
obviously not going to be a Customs Union in a reasonable time that two successive
GATT working parties refused authorisation, in September 1964 and in March 1965.
Americans and Europeans then successfully combined to avoid the problem by the device
of keeping the item permanently on the agenda on the understanding that nobody would
raise the issue. What remains mysterious about the GATT most-favoured-nation rule is
that the rule should logically have precluded trade and co-operation agreements with
particular countries.

In April 1961, at the 4th negotiating session, the Commission proposed that the
Association be based on a trade and cooperation agreement limited initially to five years.
Association should be defined according to the capabilities of the candidate. The Turks
bravely stuck to their guns because they knew that, while France and Italy favoured a
cooperation agreement with financial aid, Germany and the Benelux were willing to
accept a Customs Union if it were preceded by a preparatory period of 7 years. 22 The
impasse was so great that the fifth session did not take place for more than a year, 18-22
June 1962. Again, the Commission tabled a four-page draft of a cooperation agreement.
Turkey responded with its own text, a modification of the published Athens treaty. They
also cited American agreements with Nicaragua and El Salvador as GATT precedents. It
was not until six months later, in January 1963, that the Commission adopted the Turkish
text as the basis for the final three sessions. It may be that de Gaulle's change of mind
was related to his refusal to admit Britain, and to the heightened international tension of
the Cuban missile crisis. The European rationale for even-handed treatment of Greece
and Turkey was concern that the disaffected party might turn towards the Soviet Union,
especially as contemporary Turkish fears of US withdrawal were to be exacerbated by the
withdrawal of Jupiter missiles from Turkey. According to Philip Robins 'The EEC was
minded to supply that assistance and even to contemplate the admission of Turkey, for
fear that the Soviet Union would otherwise seek to fill the gap'.23

The Commission's 7th General report reports that the treaty of Ankara was ratified on 5
March, 1964. The low-key account is remarkable both for its schoolmasterly
admonitions to make good use of the preparatory period and for saying that the ultimate
form of relationship between Turkey and the Community was the Customs Union.
For Turkey the Association was of "vital interest" both on the economic plane –
40% of its exports go to the Community and 30% of its imports come from there
– and politically, because of its geographical situation and its traditional links
with Europe.
The Community for its part was interested in associating a country situated on the
confines of Europe, and the widening of the Common Market can have economic
and political advantages for all those sharing in it. But the content of the

22
Le Monde, 10 October 1961
23
Philip Robins, Suits and Uniforms, London:Hurst, 2003, pg. 140.
 12

Association Agreement…has to take account of Turkey's need to speed up

industrialization, modernize agriculture and improve infrastructures before
planning any mutual reduction of customs duties leading to a customs union – the
ultimate form of relationship between Turkey and the Community.
It is therefore planned to attain the objectives of the Agreement by stages.

The interim committee which managed the Association from March to December 1964
copied the rules for Association Councils and their Committees that had been set out for
Greece on 12 November, 1962.

7. The Aftermath
According to Mehmet Ali Birand, 'The Ankara agreement, signed with much pomp and
splendour, was at once forgotten'. 24. Selim Ilkin agrees that '…the Ankara Agreement
was almost totally forgotten after its ratification. It is difficult to find any comprehensive
study or discussion on the problem prior to May 16, 1967, when Turkey expressed its
desire to enter the second phase of the Agreement. 25 Roswitha Bourguignon describes
the Commission attitude as one of 'benign neglect'. 26An official of the Council recalled
that the prevailing attitude in those days was a desire to aid the fountain of democracy
and the bastion of the West. If the Turks produced an economic 'miracle' like the
Germans then membership would happen. Looking back from the vantage point of 1987,
Jean-Francois Schwed, the Commission official with most experience of Turkey,
emphasized this romantic aspect:

Il y a 24 ans, la Turquie, après la Grèce, avait fait confiance à la jeune

Communauté en demandant à s'y associer. Vieille histoire d'amour qui a, comme
toutes les histoires d'amour, connu des périodes de langueur, des brouilles et des
réconciliations.27

The absence of solidarity that led to both parties ignoring, and intermittently recalling,
the Association can be categorised under three roughly separable heads – economic,
institutional and political.

24
Mehmet Ali Birand, op.cit. 1989, Evin, Ahmet and Denton, Geoffrey, eds., 1990 Turkey and the
European Community, Opdalen: Luske and Budrich, pg. 269.

25
Selim Ilkin, 'A history of Turkey's Association with the European Community' in Ahmet Evin and
Geoffrey Denton, eds., Turkey and the European Community Opdalen: Luske and Budrich,1990, pg. 39.

26
Roswitha Bourguignon, 'The history of the Association Agreement..' in Ahmet Evin and Geoffrey
Denton, eds.,Turkey and the European Community, Opdalen: Luske and Budrich, 1990 pg. 53.

27
Jean-Joseph Schwed, 'La Turquie et la Communauté Européenne' in Jacques Thobie et Salgur Kançal,
eds., Turquie, Moyen-Orient, Communauté Européenne (Actes du Colloque de Chantilly, 15-17 Septembre
1987) Paris: l'Harmattan, 1989, pg. 359.
 13

a) lack of economic solidarity

Even before the oil crisis of 1973, the ratio of Turkish exports to imports declined from
71% in 1966 to 54% in 1973.28 Slightly increased quotas for the four products listed in
the treaty, and adding citrus and hand-made carpets to the list did not reverse this
negative trend. Loans of $105.9m (in European units of account) in soft loans contributed
to forty four infrastructural and industrial projects but was not perceived as generous in
comparison with the previously discussed American grant aid and loans from OECD
consortia. Hard currency to meet the trade deficit increasingly came from remittances by
the Turkish workers in Germany. The new State Planning Organisation in Turkey was
wedded to import substitution as the route to industrialisation. Its successive Five-Year
Development Plans, 1963-1967 or 1968-1972 did not worry how import substitution
could be made compatible with the progressive realisation of a Customs Union. In
substantial contrast to the unanimity with which the Ankara Agreement had been
received, negotiations to move to the first stage of the Customs Union by the Additional
Protocol of 1973 divided Turkish opinion. The State Planners accused the Foreign
Ministry of endangering Turkish industrialisation, while they were accused in their turn
of being Islamic. As in Western Europe, Marxists and the biggest labour organisation
combined with the nationalist Right against Brussels, with the additional complication
that Mr Erbakan told his Islamic supporters that full membership in their common market
would lead to Turkey 'becoming a colony and a servant of the West'. 29

After the oil crisis had further increased Turkey's deficit, Turkish politicians saw
salvation not in an inward-looking EEC but in barter deals and increased trade with
Islamic oil producing countries. Turkey did not carry out its scheduled tariff reductions
on EC imports. On the fifteenth anniversary of the treaty of Ankara, 12 September, 1978
Mr Ecevit unilaterally suspended the Association 'so that Turkey-EEC relations can be
improved'. The EEC allowed the new British member state in 1974 to impose unilateral
quotas on the cotton yarn exports from factories funded by European aid. After 1977 the
EEC itself imposed textile quotas on 34 countries, including Turkey, to which Turkey
retaliated with an extra 15% on steel. The EEC did not fulfil its obligation under the
Additional Protocol to move by stages to Community-wide freedom of movement for
Turkish labour by 1986. In the spring of 1976 Italy's opposition to increased Turkish
farm exports and Germany's objection to Turkish migrant workers wrecked the EEC's
offer of parallel talks at ministerial level with Greece and Turkey. The package included
aid of 310m eua to Turkey and 280m eua to Greece. Instead of the turning point in EEC-
Turkey relations anticipated by Foreign Minister Ihsan Cağlayangil, Ankara on July 24
1976 despatched the Sismik 1 under escort to search for oil in the Aegean. It was said that
the Association Council was postponed to October 'not because Sir Christopher [Soames]
is ill, but because the Association is dying'.

b) lack of institutional solidarity

In institutional terms, the Association Council did meet more frequently after the Turks
requested the early initiation of the first phase of the Customs Union, the transitional
stage, in 1967. A resolution of the joint EEC-Turkey Parliamentary committee of 30 June

28
Selim, Ilkin, op. cit. pg. 39.
29
Selim Ilkin, op. cit. pg. 40.
 14

1969 asked for progress on agriculture and the social rights of Turkish migrant workers
and to 'bear in mind that Turkey is an associated country destined to become a member
of the Community' (emphasis added). In 1970 Turkey acceded to the Coal and Steel
Community.

However the negotiation and ratification of the Additional Protocol of 1973 took so long
that its economic clauses had to be implemented by an Interim protocol in 1971.
According to Selim Ilkin, 'On the day before the provisional agreement went into effect,
Turkey raised its customs rates to compensate the effects of the reductions'. 30 Emile Noel,
the Turkish-born Secretary-General of the Community, best expressed the unilateral self-
regard on both sides that precluded 'we-feeling'. On visits to Turkey,he counselled in vain
for joint decisions under Article 12 Paragraph 4. Of recourse to unilateral measures, he
said in 1976,
Not only would it jeopardise our whole Association, but it would be contrary to
the very basis of solidarity – that is the mutual notification of difficulties, the joint
search for optimum solutions – in short, the replacement of unilateral action by
consultation.31
In the same spirit, he had earlier characterised the British imposition of quotas on cotton
yarn as 'incomprehensible'. It was the absence of the feeling and practise of solidarity that
crippled the Association. Its most frequent examples were in the meetings of
parliamentarians. Its most telling expression was the Community's failure to implement
the twin verbal assurances of the Council, held on 5 April 1980, that eventual Turkish
membership was one of its goals, and that the enlargement to Greece would not affect
relations with Turkey. The subsequent Haferkamp package in June 1980 to aid Turkey
after the Soviet attack on Afghanistan and the Iranian revolution was stymied by the
military coup in Turkey. Although Turkish Association was part of the acquis, Greece as
a Member State was able to prevent disbursement of the Fourth Financial Protocol to
Turkey. The European Parliament used its financial powers after the Single Act of 1985
to oppose this treaty-based obligation to pay the 600m ECU due to Turkey.

The Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs was also disappointed in its bid to become a
member of the new Political Committee that was being established to discuss some
matters of foreign policy. Mr Bayülken toured EEC capitals to ask in vain for full
membership of this body set up outside the treaty under the Davignon procedure to take
account of the Community's greater international role following British membership. Mr
Cankardeş requested that at least the Association Council should become a vehicle for
political cooperation. Article 22 of the Association Agreement was invoked to block this
request. It was interpreted as empowering the Association only to discuss and take
decisions on questions arising out of the Ankara Agreement itself. The eventual
compromise of informing Turkey of any discussions decided by others as relevant, and of
receiving any documents forwarded by Turkey, did not meet Turkish aspirations to a
status commensurate with its military contribution. The same issue resurfaced first in the
denial of full membership in Western European Union to Turkey when Greece made its

30
Selim Ilkin, op. cit. pg. 44.
31
Osman Akyar and Okan Aktan, eds., Economic relations between Turkey and the European Community:
report of seminar October 11-14, 1976,Ankara: Hacettepe Institute, 1978, pg 1
 15

own full membership a condition of signing the Maastricht treaty, and then in the
disputes over Turkish participation in the Common Foreign and Security Policy.

c) lack of political solidarity

The Turkish request in 1967 to begin the transition to a Customs Union was politically
motivated, intended to take advantage of the Colonels' coup in Greece. The Commission
'played it politically safe by advocating a move to the transitional stage in December
1969, but on terms to relieve the Turks for the time being from full exposure to the
effects of commercial competition and the Community regime for agriculture.' 32
The Cyprus crisis of 1973 again put Turkey at a disadvatage when military success was
accompanied by diplomatic isolation. France and Germany supported Mr Karamanlis for
restoring democracy and for going against strong domestic opposition to secure Greek
membership of the European Community in 1980. The Turkish mission to Brussels led
by Komran Inan, Minister for Energy, Autumn 1977, had no comparable backing for its
spoiling suggestion that the EEC create an antechamber for Greece, Turkey, Portugal and
Spain.33 In its negative Opinion on the Greek application, the Commission repeated the
Member States' understandable stance that peace between its Greek and Turkish
Associates was not a direct concern of the Community,

The European Community is not and should not become a party to the disputes
between Greece and Turkey… the examination of the Greek application for
membership will not affect relations between the Community and Turkey and the
rights guaranteed by the Association Agreement would not be affected thereby.34

For its part, Turkey in its 1982 Constitution made no provision for eventual application
for membership of the European Community. On 14 April 1987, Turgut Özal's
application was made as a European country under Article 237. The Commission's
Opinion of 1989 did not dwell on the strengths of the Association, but rather on Turkey's
unpreparedness and the Community's unwillingness to discuss enlargement before 1993.
The Matutes package of measures – implementation of the 1980 aid protocol, completion
of the Customs Union in all areas except agriculture and textiles by 1995, more political
dialogue and cooperation – had been dropped from the Council agenda by the end of
1990. It was not until the middle of the decade that Turkish –EU relations were rescued
by a package deal that could not speak its name between the Deputy Foreign Minister of
Greece and a Commission official to finalise the Customs Union in return for the
Community willingness to consider membership of the Republic of Cyprus without first
requiring a settlement on the island.

CONCLUSIONS
The concept of Association in the Treaty of Rome was so flexible that its form and content
could in principle be fleshed out in any number of different ways. Originating in a
32
Letter from P.J.C. Evans of the UK Delegation to the European Communities, 7 November 1968 in
Public Record Office, FCO 30/286.
33
Agence Europe, 17 October 1977.
34
Commission, Opinion on Greek Application for Membership, 29 January 1976 Bulletin supplement
February, pg. 7.
 16

supplementary Convention to the Treaty of Paris, the intended role of Article 238 in linking the
Six to Britain or to the OEEC never materialised. Paradoxically, the negotiation for a
multilateral Association with the other OEEC countries failed because the proposed
institutional machinery was too heavy, while the British brushed aside de Gaulle's offer of
Association in order to take on the full obligations of membership of the institutions. Yet in
retrospect it can be said that it is the establishment of joint Councils and joint parliamentary
bodies which has distinguished Association from trade and cooperation agreements. In
parenthesis it is noticeable that projects to institutionalise arbitration either using the European
Court of Justice, or of appointing an ECJ judge in combination with a judge from an associated
jurisdiction, have all foundered on the rock of judges' insistence on supremacy. Sovereignty
has also severely inhibited the development of feelings of solidarity within Association
Councils or joint delegations. Before each meeting of an Association Council or Committee,
the numerically superior Community side has had to establish its own common position. The
formal equality of numbers in joint parliamentary delegations has also fostered division
between 'them' and 'us'. This can be contrasted with the Community's practise of allowing
future members, the 'future us' to attend its own meetings as observers.

The Association with Turkey was negotiated in a period of European euphoria and economic
growth.The Turkish negotiators distinguished themselves from other applicants by insisting
that the Association aim to establish over an extended period a Customs Union of unlimited
duration. This meant overcoming the Community's preference for a trade and cooperation
agreement of limited duration. The eventual success of the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs
was due to a turnaround by de Gaulle, Germany and the Commission on the basis that Turkey
and Greece should be treated even-handedly lest the disgruntled partner be tempted to turn to
the Soviet Union. Commission President Hallstein's declaration that Turkey was a part of
Europe endorsed Turkey's European credentials. While this did not fully overcome the doubts
which had led to the need for such endorsement, it went a long way to removing any later
objection that Turkey's cultural differences or geographical location precluded Turkish
membership. Article 28 was a promise that the existing members would consider whether they
were unanimously in favour of Turkey's membership once Turkey was capable of meeting the
obligations of membership. Now that the Turkish population is urbanised, with millions linked
to Turkish communities in Western Europe, and is more capable of withstanding European
than Chinese competition, that promise makes Turkish claims more salient than would be the
case in the absence of such a promise. However, Sina Şükrü Gürel, Turkey's erstwhile Minister
for Europe claims too much when he says that, 'to become a full member of the EU is in fact a
right of Turkey emanating from the Ankara Agreement of 1963' 35 It is a promise akin to the
Helsinki Summit's promise to consider membership once Turkey had reformed itself to meet
the Copenhagen political criteria. It is possible that not all those who made the promise
expected that the condition would be fulfilled. There is another relevant parallel in that Article
28 was an exact copy of Article 72 in the Treaty of Athens. The Greeks like the Turks saw
Association as bringing them close to Brussels, while Brussels saw Association as part of its
Mediterranean policy.

35
Sina Şükrü Gürel in Mustafa Aydın, ed., Turkey at the threshold of the 21st Century, Ankara: International
Relations Foundation 1998 pg.12.
 17

While the Association was seen by Greece as a stepping-stone to full membership, it

was regarded by the Community as part of its policy towards the countries of the
Mediterranean basin.36

The aftermath of the Association Agreement was marked by a 'wait and see' attitude on all
sides. The absence of solidarity can be demonstrated by the failure to discuss mutual problems
with a view to solving them jointly, and by the lack of progress towards Customs Union.
Brussels' interest in establishing ever-closer institutional links or ever-closer economic
cooperation with Mediterranean countries was hampered by the stranglehold exerted over its
institutions by sectoral interests. The content of the Ankara Agreement and of the Additional
Protocol was therefore severely restricted by the interests of farmers in Italy and France; in the
next decade the crisis in the textile industries and unemployment in 37Northern Europe was
even more crippling. The Cyprus crisis reinforced the Europeans' policy of avoiding
entanglement in Greek-Turkish conflict. Brussels, Ankara and Athens were uninterested in
applying the lessons of reconciling France and Germany through joint institutions to the
Turkish case. This absence of solidarity meant the virtual death of the Association, further
crippled after 1980 by the Greek policy of not appeasing Turkey while its troops remained in
Northern Cyprus. In 1987 Turkey applied for membership under Article 237 without much
preparation and without seeking endorsement of its bid from the Association Council. Of the
occasional efforts at resuscitation, the most important has been the finalisation of the Customs
Union in 1995. Linked as it was to the promise to Greece to consider Cypriot membership
even in the absence of a settlement, the Customs Union was meant to establish a stable
framework with Turkey short of membership. Association had become so associated with the
failures of Lomé and of Turkey that the Scandinavians in the European Economic Area
preferred the term, 'partnership', and East and Central Europeans preferred the neologism of
Europe Agreements.

In retrospect, solidarity between Turkey and the European Union owes more to the long term
effects of the large-scale movement of Turkish workers and their families to Germany. In 1961
German conditions for recruiting Turkish workers resembled its Agreement with Morocco in
being much stricter on duration of stay than comparable agreements for Spanish or Portuguese
workers; the Turkish state was equally keen to prevent the permanent loss of skilled workers
through educational assimilation, dual citizenship and the like. However, the German state
proved reluctant to enforce departures of foreign workers by train, and Social Democrats are
now willing to endorse the idea of a multicultural Europe. For their part millions of Turks now
have personal experience of Western Europe directly or through relatives. Moreover, the
Turkish economy has expanded in defiance of economists' theories that growth is incompatible
with inflation. It is the prospect of greater political stability through reform, and of the greater
domestic and foreign investment associated with membership, that now drives Turkey's
membership aspirations, not the chequered historical record of Association.

8,458 words
8 May, 2004

36
Tsalicoglou, op.cit. pg 140.
37
 18

Keele University