EU Integration of Turkey: Implications for Turkish Agriculture

Turkey’s membership to the EU will involve full liberalization of agricultural trade with the EU. The effects of liberalization are bound to depend on the path of agricultural policies in Turkey and in the EU during the accession negotiations. In order to evaluate the possible impacts of a variety of policy alternatives and scenarios, an economic modelling approach based on non-linear mathematical programming is appropriate. In this framework, the major purpose of this paper is to evaluate the impact of Turkish integration to the EU on agriculture using an agricultural sector model for Turkey. The basic approach undertaken supplements the past efforts by incorporating Maximum Entropy to the positive mathematical programming, together with updated base period and including recent policy changes. Following the integration with EU, the net exports in agro-food products decline mainly due to the expansion of trade in livestock products. Overall welfare effects of including agrofood products in the customs union and membership are small. Consumers benefit from declining prices. CAP supports are determinative for producers’ welfare. The results of the simulations provide also updated estimates about the possible size of CAP expenditures for Turkish agriculture