Brussels, 16/11/2011 (Agence Europe) - Due to the rise in trade between the EU and Turkey, the European Commission wishes to move forward the customs union in place since 31 December 1995.
Over and above their new bilateral agenda, which is dominated by an accession negotiation process which has made limited progress since it was launched in 2005, the customs union between the EU and Turkey will be central to the visit to Istanbul on 17 and 18 November of European Commissioners Karel De Gucht (Trade) and Stefan Füle (Enlargement). As well as the representatives of the Turkish authorities - including Deputy Prime Minister Ali Babaçan and the Minister for European affairs, Egemen Bagis -De Gucht and Füle will meet representatives of the business community and Turkish civil society, and will attend a conference organised by the European Policy Centre and the Confederation of Businessmen and Industrialists of Turkey (TUSKON), entitled EU/Turkey: common interests revisited. “Our meetings will focus on the many things that the EU and Turkey have in common. We work together in so many areas, we are linked in so many ways and this is why our foundations are solid. But a new agenda focusing on how to breathe new life into our relations, and the accession process in particular, is needed”, Mr Füle explained in a press release. Very few accession chapters have been opened since 2005, the Commission points out.
Given the rise in bilateral trade, making Turkey the EU's seventh-largest trade partner, De Gucht wants to work with his Turkish partners to examine ways of better exploiting their vast commercial potential. Amongst other things, the European executive wishes to improve and move forward the customs union which entered into force on 31 December 1995, but which has been limited since then to goods alone, as talks on extending it to services and public procurement have been frozen since 2002.
In 2010, the EU imported €42 billion worth of goods and services from Turkey, mainly machines and transport equipment, but also textile products. Its exports of goods and services - mainly machinery, transport materials, chemicals and manufactured products - into Turkey reached a level of €61 billion in the same year. Additionally, between 2008 and 2010, Turkish foreign direct investment (FDI) in the EU was worth €2.1 billion, while the flow of FDI from the EU to Turkey stood at €14.7 billion. (EH/transl.fl)