How I see the Turkey-EU economic relationship?

I am about to give a short interview to TRT World channel about the fate of Turkey-EU economic relations. I have summarized my point of view as follow:

First of all, we have to acknowledge that Turkey-EU relationship is based on, to a great extend, deep and comprehensive economic integrity. We can say that, this economic relationship contributed significantly to the transformation of Turkish economy from agrarian to the industrial economy, and created a new middle class.

We have now a robust and competitive Turkish ecocomy, which is more aligned with the global standards and regulations like safety, quality and environmental standards, more productive and most importantly, a part of the global value chain.

I am in the opinion that, we should appreciate the contribution of EU-Turkey economic relations during this period of time.

In the last two decades and particularly after the ratification of customs union in 1996, volume of Turkish-EU trade increased four folds reaching 140 billion dollars as of 2016. With this number, Turkey became the fifth biggest trade partner of EU. On the other hand, we have to also acknowledge that Turkey is now one of the biggest and attractive market for EU products.

There are now over 16.000 companies established by EU citizens in Turkey.

Moreover, three fourth of foreign direct investment are flowing Turkey through EU countries.

As seen, this economic relationship has created a win-win situation for both parties.

As a matter of fact, this comprehensive economic relationship has had also substantial impact to other areas rather that economy. During this period of time, we have witnessed an increase in democratic standards and improvement in transparency and rule of law, which was possible through the leverage effect of improving economic relationship.

At the end of the day, we can conclude that the mutual economic relationship provided both parties increased living standards and a role-model for other countries.

Biggest challenge ahead of us now is, modernizing customs union in line with the today’s requirements which serves both parties interests.