Mavi Boncuk |
Turkey's application to accede to the European Economic Community, the predecessor of the European Union (EU), was made on 14 April 1987. After the ten founding members, Turkey was one of the first countries to become a member of the Council of Europe in 1949. The country has also been an associate member of the Western European Union from 1992 to its end in 2011. Turkey signed a Customs Union agreement with the EU in 1995 and was officially recognized as a candidate for full membership on 12 December 1999, at the Helsinki summit of the European Council.
Negotiations for full membership were started on 3 October 2005. Progress was slow, and out of the 35 Chapters necessary to complete the accession process only 16 had been opened and one had been closed by May 2016. The early 2016 refugee deal between Turkey and the European Union was intended to accelerate negotiations after previous stagnation and as allow visa-free travel through Europe for Turks.
Turkish accession talks came to a halt as a result of the 2016–17 Turkish purges. On 24 November 2016 the European Parliament voted to suspend accession negotiations with Turkey over human rights and rule of law concerns, though this decision was not binding. On 13 December, the Council of the European Union (comprising the ministers of the member states) resolved that it would open no new areas in Turkey's membership talks in the "prevailing circumstances", as Turkey’s path toward autocratic rule made progress on EU accession impossible. As of 2017, and especially following the passage of the constitutional referendum, Turkish accession talks have effectively stopped.
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