ABSTRACT
Introduction The EU-Turkey Association, which is the second association agreement of the EU, was initially intended to pave the way for EU membership through successive stages. It sought to provide a pre-preparatory stage for Turkey to ready itself for EU membership through a systematic transition by providing closer economic and political cooperation (Bourguignon, 1990; Lasok, 1993; Aybak, 1995). Nevertheless, the EU-Turkey Association has failed to achieve the declared political and economic objective of the agreement. This is partly because of Turkey’s failure to fulfill her obligations arising from the Agreement by undertaking the necessary economic and political reforms to bringing its economic and political system to converge with that of the EU (Ugur, 1999).
