ON THE ROAD TO EU MEMBERSHIP - CANDIDATE COUNTRIES - TURKEY
Membership status Candidate country Background In 1987, Turkey applied to join what was then the European Economic Community, and in 1997 it was declared eligible to join the EU. Turkey's involvement with European integration dates back to 1959 and includes the Ankara Association Agreement (1963) for the progressive establishment of a Customs Union (ultimately set up in 1995). Accession negotiations started in 2005, but until Turkey agrees to apply the Additional Protocol of the Ankara Association Agreement to Cyprus, eight negotiation chapters will not be opened and no chapter will be provisionally closed. Turkey is seeing an unprecedented and continuously increasing influx of people seeking refuge from Syria which has exceeded 2.2 million to date. Overall, Turkey is the country in the world hosting the highest number of refugees, and has already spent more than 7 billion EUR of its own resources on addressing this crisis. The Commission has engaged with Turkey...