Why an EU-Turkey Customs Union Upgrade is Good for Turkey

Policy Brief (German Marshall Fund of the United States) May 29, 2015

Kemal Kirisci & Sinan Ekim *

There is growing recognition in Turkish academic, bureaucratic, and business circles that Turkey cannot afford to remain outside emerging trading regimes. Upgrading the Customs Union with the EU will not only compensate for the disadvantages resulting from being left out of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), but also increase the prospects of a bilateral free trade agreement with the United States. The two together would, in effect, be tantamount to Turkey’s participation in TTIP.

* Kemal Kirişci is the TÜSİAD senior fellow and director of the Center on the United States and Europe’s Turkey Project at Brookings, with an expertise in Turkish foreign policy and migration studies. Sinan Ekim is a recent graduate of the London School of Economics and a research assistant at the Istanbul Policy Centre, working on the Institute’s Global Turkey in Europe and Project on the Middle East and Arab Springs projects.

Download full text (Format Pdf)