Turkey has reached a critical point in its participation in the EU Customs Union, driven by anxiety over the implications of the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), a free-trade deal being negotiated by the European Union and the United States to integrate their markets, a total population of 800 million.
TTIP talks, which began in July 2013 and convened for a fifth round in May, are expected to be completed in late 2016 or early 2017. Once the agreement takes effect, customs barriers between the United States and EU countries will fall. The agreement will be unilaterally binding for Turkey because of the customs union deal it struck with the EU in 1996. In accordance, US products would be allowed onto the Turkish market free of tariffs, while levies on Turkish products sold to the United States would remain in place. Thus, not only would Turkey lose revenues from customs tariffs, it would also struggle to protect its economy and industry against an influx of tariff-free goods.