A Neverending Story: The Free Movement of Turkish Workers Within the European Union

Abstract

The relations between Turkey and the European Union (EU) rest on an association regime in force for more than fifty years, as established by the Ankara Association Agreement. With the Athens Agreement signed with Greece, the Ankara Agreement constitutes one of the two association agreements that the EU has concluded with third countries providing the free movement of workers between the contracting parties under an ambitious framework.

However, notwithstanding the explicit affirmations in existing legal texts, the arrangements put in place by the association law have not been realized and the external policies towards Turkish nationals have been tightened up. Indeed, there is a considerable gap, not only between the starting point of the contracting parties and their current state of affairs concerning the conception of social integration, but also between the wording of the provisions adopted and their practice.

The present contribution strives to discuss the influence of political and economic momentum in the formation of this gap and especially on the European Court of Justice’s ways of approaching the association regime concerning the freemovement of Turkish workers within the European Commission (EC), as established by the Association Agreement, the Additional Protocol and the decisions of the Association Council.

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