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Growth and Immigration Scenarios for Turkey and the EU. EU-Turkey Working Papers No. 13, 1 December 2004

Erzan, Refik and Kuzubas, Umut and Yildiz, Nilufer. (2004) Growth and Immigration Scenarios for Turkey and the EU. EU-Turkey Working Papers No. 13, 1 December 2004. [Working Paper]

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    Abstract

    In the debate about Turkish EU membership and free movement of labour it is often overlooked that the EU cannot exercise a zero migration policy even if permanent safeguards were used. Even under the currently prevailing strict regime, there is an annual net migration from Turkey to the EU-15 in the order of 35,000 people. Any slowdown or suspension in Turkey’s accession process is likely to lead lower growth and higher unemployment in Turkey. Moreover, the reform process might slow down or be partially reversed. The consequence of such a combination would be drastically higher number of potential migrants. A considerable proportion of them would be finding their way into the EU – as experience has shown irrespective of legal restriction. It is thus possible that if Turkey loses the membership perspective, the EU may end up having more immigrants than under a free movement of labour regime with a prosperous EU member Turkey. Moreover, the composition of this migration would be less conducive for the EU labour markets - and - for integration in the host societies. The experiences of Greece, Portugal and Spain indicate that a successful accession period with high growth and effective implementation of the reforms reduces and gradually eliminates the migration pressures. There is no a priori reason why Turkey would not go through a similar experience.

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    Item Type: Working Paper
    Subjects for non-EU documents: EU policies and themes > Policies & related activities > Third Pillar/JHA/PJCC/AFSJ > immigration policy
    EU policies and themes > Treaty reform > enlargement
    Countries > Turkey
    Subjects for EU documents: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Series and Periodicals: UNSPECIFIED
    EU Annual Reports: UNSPECIFIED
    Series: Series > Centre for European Policy Studies (Brussels) > EU-Turkey Working Papers
    Depositing User: Phil Wilkin
    Official EU Document: No
    Language: English
    Date Deposited: 31 Mar 2007
    Page Range: p. 16
    Last Modified: 15 Feb 2011 17:44
    URI: http://aei.pitt.edu/id/eprint/6770

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