There has been an important step taken recently on the betterment of Turkey's status and position at the Customs Union, which is between Turkey and the EU, and Transatlantic Trade Investment Partnership ("TTIP"). Nihat Zeybekci, the minister of economy of Turkey, and Cecilia Malmström, the European Commissioner for Trade, have come together in Brussels on May 12, 2015 and signed a memorandum of understanding ("MoU") to amend the Customs Union Agreement1 that has been signed between Turkey and the EU on December 31, 1995 to conform with TTIP. The MoU covers certain significant titles such as i) agriculture, services and public procurement, ii) Turkey's taken a part in the position of decision making process, iii) decrease of quota in land transportation etc. Nevertheless, the most critical section of the MoU is the part about Turkey's being included in the TTIP. As the EU is one of the two parties of the TTIP, EU's support to Turkey for being a part of TTIP is very crucial. The MoU will take effect on January 1, 2016 and until such date and then, Turkey has been promised by EU to get informed of the every step and progress of the negotiations between the US and EU about TTIP.
In our article titled Economical Impacts of TTIP on the US, EU and Turkey2 which was published on Mondaq on February 20, 2015, we already underlined the relation between the Customs Union Agreement and TTIP. With the recent progress made, the timing of the publication of our article on TTIP, has become much more meaningful.
1 http://www.avrupa.info.tr/fileadmin/Content/Downloads/PDF/Custom_Union_des_ENG.pdf
2 http://www.mondaq.com/article.asp?articleid=376266
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