European Union Research and Application Center completed its “EU, Populism and Poverty” Project
Prof. Dr. Philippe Schmitter talked about the relations between EU and the USA and later he stated that today’s democracies were having representation crisis, there was a decrease in the confidence of the citizens especially the young people, and they were not able to solve the problems like security, environment, etc. Prof. Schmitter commented on the latest elections in the USA and said that the election of Barack Obama might gradually change the policy of the USA about the European Union countries which is to have separate relations with each of them. Schmitter stated that the things going on in the policy of the USA might have direct effect on EU, Obama who was elected without receiving votes from south and Jews could take EU relations to another dimension and this could effect Turkey-EU relations.
Prof. Dr. Atilla Eralp that mentioned the historical infrastructure of EU-Turkey relations stated that the interaction that improves unstably was shaped with the complementary roles of the parties. Prof. Eralp stated that the two factors that effected Turkey-EU relations were time and interaction. He underlined the fact that it is not certain whether the negotiations that began in this scope would come to an end with membership or not. For him, one of the basic factors in this process is the Cyprus problem.
Dr. Özgehan Şenyuva explained how EU-Turkey relations were perceived by the Turkish society in the framework of statistical data. Dr. Şenyuva explained that according to Eurobarometer data is made regularly by EU Turkish people are afraid of the effects that will be brought by EU, the rate of feeling European and if it is known what EU is by the Turkish people, and she revealed that the economical developments in Turkey after 2004 decreased the support to EU.
Asst. Prof. Çiğdem Kentmen talked about the basic factors that affected the support of Turkish citizens to EU membership and showed that contrary to popular belief, Islamic bounds had little effect on these factors. Kentmen, underlined the fact that dependence to national identity and the contribution of EU to economics of the country shaped the opinions about EU.
Asst. Prof. Işık Gürleyen stated that European elites did not have an integral attitude towards member candidates and at the heart of these different views was how EU was perceived as an entity. Gürleyen said that it was possible to see EU as a union that is “problem solver, based on values or based on rights” and groups the elites that support the membership of Turkey in these three EU concepts. In accordance with it, the European elites that have a EU perception as a problem solver or based on rights support Turkey, however, the elites that have a European perception based on values say that the membership of Turkey will be the end of EU.
