ULUSLARARASI EKONOMİK SORUNLAR

Turkey in the Doha Round:
An Analysis in the Light of Turkey-EU
Relations
1. Introduction
The Doha Round of Trade Negotiations –hereafter Doha Round- in the WTO is at a
critical stage. It is planned that the Round is finalised before the end of this year. No
need to explain how important these negotiations are: There are negotiations going on
under thirteen different titles which aim at agreements binding for all 153 Members.
The aim of the current study is to evaluate the expected costs and benefits of Doha
Round for Turkey. While doing this, a special emphasis will be put on the Turkey-
European Union (EU) relations. The justification for this approach is clear-cut. Turkey
appears to have pledged its future to EU. The accession negotiations between EU and
Turkey is going on and Turkey aspires to become a full member soon. Within this
context, both from a legal and political perspective, Turkey has an obligation to
harmonise its trade policies with the EU.
The harmonisation mentioned is probably the most effortless one among other
policy areas due to the special relationship between Turkey and EU. As it is known,
Turkey is involved in a customs union with the EU since 1996. Leaving aside the
agricultural products which are not covered by the customs union, Turkey does not have
an autonomous trade policy in terms of tariff protection as it has to follow the common
customs tariff. In this sense, an analysis of Turkey’s commitment for a common trade
policy with the EU becomes a two-fold task: One has to take into account the obligations
stemming from the customs union as well as the obligations sourcing from the accession
process.
Returning to our declared aim, we are going to limit our cost-benefit analysis of the
Doha Round for Turkey to three different headings. These are Agriculture, Non-
Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and Trade Facilitation. The choice for the first
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N. Tolga TUNCER*
(*) Deputy Foreign Trade Expert, Undersecretariat of the Prime Ministry for Foreign Trade.
Uluslararası Ekonomik Sorunlar 19