 So after having the opinion of an Indian historian who taught 40 years at Harvard, Tufts, et cetera, now maybe a Turkish opinion, I'm not a historian. But when we look at history, for example, William Penn in 1693 writes a book, Some Reasons for European Powers, to establish a European state. And he has a joint parliament yet, and the revolving presidency, and the joint army, et cetera, and allocates seats to the members. Spain, eight seats, France, 10 seats. Turkey, 10 seats. And he says, Turks are Mohammedans, right. But they are human beings, and they are in Europe. So a Quaker proposing a European integration includes Turkey in 1693 in the heyday of Ottoman Empire, I would say. But the Polish ambassador once said that, no, no, we beat you in 1683. So it wasn't really the heyday. But be that as it may. I come to First World War. Turkey occupied. We lost the war. We always say in history classes, we lost the war because the Germans lost it. But we lost it, too. But in any case, Turkey was occupied. And Mustafa Kemal Atatürk started a war of independence, war of liberation. He organized some meetings in Sivas, Erzurum, and the parliament was established in Ankara 1920, Grand National Assembly. That is the only example of establishing a parliament before even starting war of liberation. And he was successful. Lozan Treaty was signed, Republic was declared, and as Professor Feruz Ahmed said, that he wanted to achieve contemporary civilization. We used to have religious laws. Atatürk's reforms, we have adopted Western legislation. Nowadays, they tell us, a key communitaire, 80,000, 100,000 pages, will Turkey be able to implement that? Today, because of the customs union, we already adopted 60% of the key communitaire and implemented. But in 1926, we have totally adopted Western legislation. Turkish civil code and obligations code is a verbatim translation of Swiss civil code. And then we have adopted the German Handelsgeser commercial code, Italian criminal system, French administrative law can say that it's a revolutionary change. They call it reception of a legal system, not like hotel reception, but reception of a legal system. And in 1926, although we adopted the Swiss civil code, Turkey, and thanks to Atatürk's reforms, Turkish women had the right to vote and to be elected to parliament 40 years before Switzerland and maybe 30 years before many other European countries. This is the vision of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. And in 1927, in Austria, an Austrian aristocrat, Rehard Kaudenhauf von Kalergi writes a book, Pano Europa. And in this book, he's all the parliaments, et cetera, it says, British cannot join. They're not Europeans. I don't know why he says that. They're still debating that. But it says, Turkey, if so, wishes can join. It is thanks to Atatürk's reforms, 1927, 1928. Professor Feruz Ahmed mentioned the League of Nations, Turkey joined. In 1929, Monsieur Aristide Briand, French foreign minister, made a speech in the League of Nations in Geneva. He says, we, the members of the League of Nations, European powers, should establish a European organization. And they said, fine, go and make a project. And next year, he came back and they said, well, Turkey is not a member of the League of Nations. Why? Because Turkey only joins atatürk's Turkey, that is, organizations that you are invited to. And of course, in Lausanne Treaty, Turkey's borders in the Southeast today was left open. British smelled oil. And therefore, that was left to the League of Nations. A Lithuanian general drove the border. And it drove in such a way that the oil is on the other side and the rocky part is on our side. But in any way, Turkey didn't join in the League of Nations. Since there was going to be a European organization open only to the members of the League of Nations, there was a proposal. Spanish delegate proposed that Turkey should be invited to the League of Nations so that they could establish a European organization. Spanish proposal, guess which country supported? Greece. So at the time, of course, Greek Prime Minister, Venizelos, nominated Atatürk for Nobel Peace Prize. And some of them were nominated them together because after 1923, how they established peace between the two countries. But 1945, UN was mentioned, 1949, Council of Europe established. And the 5th of May, Europa Day, we celebrated, et cetera. First Council of Ministers met. And the first thing Council of Europe did was to issue an invitation to government of Turkey that it becomes a member of Council of Europe, the first act. And our foreign minister was informed, so he was waiting outside in the corridor. So he joined from the first day. So Turkey is like a founder state of the Council of Europe. There are being discussions. Is Turkey European? How much part of Turkey, Anatolia, Asia, Trace? Professor Feriz Ahmed said Trace is very small. It's much bigger than Belgium, Holland put together. So I mean, what is small, what is big, it's something else, but Turkey has become a member of Council of Europe. And Joint NATO, the treaty was signed in 51, in 52, four years before Federal Republic of Germany. The kind of burdens Turkey has undertook for the defense of Western Europe, as you may remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, how the Russian Khrushchev was going to attack Turkey. We had 65 missile bases, missile monitoring bases, all for defense of Europe. If today, Poland and all the Eastern European countries are members of European organizations, NATO, EECs, thanks to Turkey's sacrifices in the defense of Europe. But this seems to be forgotten for some reasons or not. But the European Coal and Steel Community, fine, in 1957, March 25th, Treaty of Rome signed in Rome, municipality building, entered into force first of January 58th. But even before the entry into force of the Treaty of Rome, in October 1957, in the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, which was established by Ataturk in the same very building, a new Turkish prime minister after the elections was reading a new government program. The first time we had multi-party elections was in 1946. In 1950, the Republican People's Party was wiped out, and Democratic Party won a big landslide majority. 54 still a big majority, 57 less, but still they formed the government. And Prime Minister Adnan Menderes was reading the government program, Turkey being a member of Council of Europe, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Council of Europe, OECD, and many other European organizations. We understand something called Common Market is being established, 1957, even before entry into force. Although this sounds like an economic organization, Common Market, we think it's going to lead into a political union, and that's why Turkey must be a part of this Common Market. Who says that? Turkish Prime Minister. When? Even before entry into force of the Treaty of Rome, and with the political organization. Most of the leaders, at least some of them, who signed the treaty at that time did not have that political integration vision. So this is important, and in 1959, July, government of Turkey has applied for an association. This was the end of July, and September negotiations started. You know how long we waited for the accession negotiations at the time? We didn't have to wait. August, everything was closed in Brussels. They have vacation, they used to go to French Riviera, now they go to Turkish Riviera, but still September negotiations started. And the Turkish government in 1959 had an interministerial meeting, and this meeting had the common negotiating position. The negotiating position of Turkey was, we want to have an agreement based on a customs union leading to full membership. Year 1959. Why? Because the Treaty of Rome, the original article nine at the time says, European community is based on a customs union. So when the negotiations continued, in 1963 it was signed in Ankara, in the Grand National Assembly again, this was the new building then, it's not at the Turkish building, but still six foreign ministers were there, the original six was six members at the time. And the first commission president, Professor Halstein. Professor Halstein said with this treaty, Turkey has tied her destiny to Europe. Joseph Lunds of Holland said Turkey today has become inseparable part of European integration. And then it was the German foreign minister, Italian foreign minister, they all said the same things, and the treaty was signed. The association agreement we have today, why I'm telling you of these is some months ago in European Court of Justice, Advocate General appointed by Sarkozy, Mr. Both said Turkish association agreement is just an economic agreement. Whereas up to now, there are more than 60 judgements which says Turkish agreement is an agreement aiming for membership for closer cooperation, therefore we have to interpret it this way, that way, et cetera. This is the first time, no wonder it's a Sarkozy appointment some of my students say, but still this was the issue. Now, look at the association agreement, the four basic freedoms, enshrined in the Treaty of Rome is exactly taken in our association agreement, free movement of goods, services, workers, and the capital. And in 1970, additional protocol was signed, fixing the timetable. Customs union was to be established between 12 and 22 years after the entry into force of the additional protocol. Entry into force 73, 22 years 1995. So today, since 1st of January 1996, Turkey is the only third country which has a full customs union on industrial products with the European Union, which is an important issue. And there was also a provision which said there will be free movement of workers. Fries, the Germans say it's a mouthful word, but anyway, would start between 12 and 22 years after the entry into force of the association agreement, which is 64, so between 76 and 86, according to this treaty, there was supposed to be free movement of workers between Turkey and the European Economic Community as defined in the Treaty of Rome, nothing special. However, this has not been realized, and although Turkey has agreed to have full customs union by 1996 with EU, this was agreed based on the assumption that there will be free movement of workers 10 years before that, 1986. So when we look at it from a legal point of view, that portion, that column of the association agreement has not been fulfilled. Now, 1996, fine, a customs union means you adopt the common customs tariff, but not only that, we adopted all the international agreements that EU has signed, free trade agreements, preferential agreements, cooperation agreements. Our official journal, 94, 95, 96, appeared in encyclopedic volumes. Why? Because we have adopted a substantial port of the Aki Community. We have adopted the common intellectual and industrial property rights law. They said there must be equal competition. You know, you're becoming member of the customs union, so competition must be on equal grounds. We have adopted the competition laws, all the European regulations, directives, exclusive distribution agreements, exclusive buying agreements, beer distribution agreements, everything, verbatim translation, and today we have one of the most effective national competition authorities in Turkey. This is fine, but is there equal competition between Turkey and the European Union in industrial products or any other products? There are some technical issues. I don't want to bore you with all of that, but goods are in free circulation. American goods coming to Turkey enter usually from Rotterdam, Hamburg. Nowadays they come to Piraeus, Constanza, Nessebar, Varna, et cetera. They pay the customs duties in member states and since goods are in free circulation, come to Turkey. Member states, among themselves, have a system where such customs duties are shared. It goes to the community budget and so on. Since Turkey is not a member, we don't get anything of this. This is a customs union, but works only in favor of EU countries. This is one aspect. And the economists tell us, I'm not an economist, that they say that in customs unions work in favor of more advanced, richer countries. Why? The infrastructure is stronger there. If you want to set up a business, would you do it in Rotterdam, Hamburg, or Mezzajorno or some places in rural areas in the south? So in order to elevate such structural imbalances, in EU there is structural funds, social funds, cohesion funds, all sorts of, and the European firms competing with Turkish firms are benefiting from these funds, directly, mostly indirectly, Turkey gets nothing. This is another aspect. And when the Association Council in 1995, March, decided for the completion of the customs union, as it was agreed in 1963, as the diet was fixed in 1970, the 15 member states at the time made a solemn declaration. A customs union in industrial products with the advanced industrial states of European economic community in a country like Turkey is a big challenge. Therefore, Turkey will need substantial, medium, and long-term financial assistance. And we shouldn't wait until 1996. We should start it immediately in 1995. That's still hanging there because of vetoes of a certain footnote member states and various other countries that that financial support has not been realized either. And therefore, the customs union issues are quite serious. Now, in order to come here, I almost canceled my visit here because the honorary council general of Ireland in Istanbul used to be able to give visas. And I refused to apply for visas because I feel in 1982 I wrote a letter to a professor inviting me to Germany. I don't want to subject myself to an illegal act. And unfortunately, the treaties which are signed these days are not even worth the paper as Germany has imposed a visa. And the professor who invited me sent the letter to Hans-Dietrich Gencer. And Hans-Dietrich Gencer, the foreign minister at the time, writes back to me, professor, don't worry, be happy. Why? This is a temporary measure. It is still being applied 1980 and today. And this constitutes in such a barrier, such a resentment that you cannot imagine. I have more than 100 Erasmus law students in my faculty, only five or six wants to go. Professor, we don't want to go through that visa torture in human degrading. And apparently my passport was sent to Ankara. I didn't want to have the risk my passport being sent by post, et cetera. But today, ladies and gentlemen, that equal competition, fair competition, does it exist? Member state businessmen and industrialists enter into Turkey either without a visa. And when professor Mimta Soysal, constitutional law professor was minister, he imposed visas on the countries during his reign for a visa. Or that visa can be obtained in the airport in few minutes, 10 euro, 12 euro. And the amount of money I had to pay three years, four years ago for two year UK visa was more than 300 euro. I didn't even travel at the time. I was just having that. So Turkish businessmen, we are in customs union. Goods are in free circulation. Many investments are made in central Turkey, eastern Turkey, because of opening up the customs union. And these guys send their goods to Frankfurt fair, Hanover messa, wherever they are, goods arrive. But the persons who are going to sell them, who are going to exhibit them, go there 10 days after due to visa takes time and they lose the business opportunities. And you know what kind of documents you have to have in order to apply for a visa, 21 different documents, land ownership deed trusts, six months your bank account traffic. What the hell is the consular officer? And nowadays it's not even a consular officer. It's a company delegated by the consulates. Look at my six months back, money movements. Where is commercial secrecy? And then you have to have a letter of invitation from your business counterpart. How can you have arms length negotiations in a customs union, even if your presence in that country depends on your commercial competitors sending a letter? Is this the way to run a customs union? And then there are truck restrictions. Goods are in free circulations, good. Turkish trucks, no, not more than 15,000 from Hungary, not more than 18,000 from that country. Where is customs union when you bring restrictions of that nature? So these are some of the issues. But another most important issue is that in 1996, as you remember, I said we have adopted all the European external economic agreements, trade agreements, et cetera. And normally through WTO gut negotiations, this would continue. Since the Doha round did not work, now EU goes around and signs free trade agreements with Mexico, Tunisia, now Korea, India, supposed to negotiate with US. And where is Turkey? They go and sign with Korea and turn to us, you sign a similar agreement. But we don't have the same negotiating power of EU. And when EU goes there to negotiate, what do they negotiate? It's about the European customs area. And the European customs area today is defined 27 plus Turkey. So to my mind, there should be a Turkish minister in the Council of Ministers. It's called 133 Meeting for Trade. Before they determine a common negotiating position for EU, for EU, you have a country 75 million, 16th largest economy in the world, six largest economy in Europe, and it's all trade, external trade relations, dependent in Brussels without even consultation. Is this the way to run a railroad company that Americans say, but it's not the way to run a customs union. If you and me, we set up a business here and I send goods from and if I do, in a joint venture, things on my own, without consulting you, is this fine? So European Union is unfortunately violating the concept of customs union, where there is no consultation, nothing. To my mind, sure we should be in the decision making and if European Union is negotiating with country X, we should start the negotiations with the country X at the same time. If you don't sit on the same table, at least do it somewhere else, but negotiations should continue parallel and such text agreements should be concluded at the same time and make sure enter into force at the same time. Today, Korean products with lower customs tariffs enter into EU, but since we could not sign an agreement with country X with whatever country, Korean products come into Turkey with lower tariff, but our products cannot go to Korea because we still don't have an agreement. This is contrary to any kind of principle of customs union that you may have. Now, I mentioned all sorts of things from history to the day. You have a country which has for the last five decades tied its destiny to European integration and if Europe continues, this Turkey, Muslim, ISIS, is Europe, religious organization, which in the latest constitutional debate this was rejected, but after five decades and Turkey, all the political institutions, all the economic agents, everybody made their programs, five year programs, 10 year programs in line with EU integration and if Turkey is pushed out because of religion or whatever reason it may be, I do not, I mean, some of my colleagues in Brussels says that after such a treatment to Turkey, I hesitate that Turkey will not cooperate with us. That everybody expects that if you push Turkey on the corner, Turkey will still cooperate and immigration, harmonization, every kind of issue. After such a resentment that the country is facing all these things, would Turkey be there to cooperate with Europe again? To some extent, yes, but that would be an open question and these days negotiations was opened up 2005 with a unanimous decision of the Council of Ministers and then we had Sarkozy and I don't know he was having problems with his first wife so I thought after Karla Bruni he would be more relaxed. He puts table so he's taller, so he could, no, he blocked six chapters on what ground because they resemble membership. What are we talking about? These are membership negotiations, accession negotiations, certainly they will deal membership and then Greeks the pre-administration blocked certain other aspects and as you know the membership of the Greek Cypriot administration was in violation of their own constitution, was in violation of the treaties establishing Republic of Cyprus as an independent country. We recognize Republic of Cyprus when there was full Turkish participation. Turkish vice president, which has a right of veto, which was accused of abusing the veto. Galafkos Clarides in his memoir says vice president has never used the veto, he only used this once and it was to our benefit. Three ministers in the cabinet, member of the parliament 60-40, municipalities, Turkish separate municipalities and because of such delicate checks and balances in the constitution there was a supreme constitutional court, one Greek judge, one Turkish judge and the third judge, a German professor from Heidelberg, Professor Forstoff, so that this could be an arbitration type of arbiter in the disputes. In 1963, after six, seven volumes of judgments of the constitutional court, which said that the acts of the Archbishop Macarios at the time has been in violation of the constitution, the guy has been threatened, his house was with a bomb, he escaped and the Turkish ministers moved out of office in 1963 and today there is no such Republic of Cyprus. European Union started the negotiations hoping that this could be a catalyzer for solution and the German foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, said Cyprus joining EU without the constitutional settlement over my dead body. I saw him running in Berlin the other day, it's good he is still alive but after black males, if you don't allow that, I won't do this type of thing. Such black males continue and they block six chapters. Now, the customs union covers all the member states, Greek products also, but since we do not recognize Cyprus, Greek Cypriots as the Republic of Cyprus, their boats cannot come to Turkish ports. This is a gesture. Wow, you have to do this because this is customs union. Yes, fine, but what about our trucks going EU? They say no, customs union only covers goods, trucks, this is services. When it comes to ships from the other side, such kind of double standards and not really honest treatment, unfortunately hurts people in Turkey. I've spent all my life. I've set up the European Institute in Marmara University in 1987. We had the top brand students in the master's program which was really tough, they all graduated. I saw some of them the other day, professor they said, it's already 23 years, we are about to retire. You got us into the EU issue. Now in the university I work with, they say why don't you set up the European Institute? I said, no, I burned my fingers now. But I think it is time which we appreciate that the Irish presidency is working on to open several chapters, I hope, but one chapter seems to be already agreed. But, and with the kind of developments in the Middle East, I think it's in the Western interest to keep Turkey fully in EU. There is nothing called special partnership, privileged partnership. These are all baloney, Turkey will not accept anything lower than full membership. There could be longer transitionary periods for free movement of persons, they are afraid. The situation is not the same today. Turkey is the fastest growing economy as the governor of our central bank, the former government is going to explain. In 2008, there were 800,000 guest arbiter in Turkey from Armenia, from Ukraine. I wanted to have bookshelves in my home. Two persons who didn't speak Turkish, they were from Romania, they fixed the library there. And we have house maids, et cetera, from all sorts of different countries. And 200,000 Turks from Germany returned to Turkey. So this visa issue is important. The reasons for imposing the visa as if it was valid in 1980, which I didn't think as already is gone. The first thing in order to improve the relations pupils' resentment that the visa, which is, by the way, illegal. The European Court of Justice has ruled that the Turkish Association Agreement, like free movement of goods, has free movement of services. And this will be achieved by decisions of the Association Council. But Article 41 says, contracting parties shall refrain from introducing new restrictions on free movement of services and right of establishment. Here right establishment open a branch, open a shop, subsidiary company, et cetera and free movement of services. So the European Court of Justice, in the Soysal case, it was a Turkish truck driver and the Germany didn't require a visa from Turkish truck drivers. But the smart guy in the Interior Ministry said we should put a visa on the truck drivers too. He went to the court, Berlin court, Luxembourg court, and Luxembourg court said this article is clear, unconditional and does not require any implementing measure. Therefore, it has direct effect and the visa constitutes a new restriction. But the European people, we have Schengen. Schengen rules are secondary sources of law. Turkish Association Agreement is a primary source of law. Your Schengen regulation, I call it in Turkish Schengen's resolution. Your Schengen resolutions and rules must be in line with the Turkish Association Agreement. And unfortunately, ladies and gentlemen, your country and other member states and the commission is violating European Union law, judgments of the European Court of Justice by imposing a visa on Turkish citizens, setting up a business, et cetera. But in 1973, if you wanted to, you know, sitting in Konya and I dream of opening up a shop in Dublin, of course you have to come as a tourist first, look around how many shops here make plans, which sector you can do, et cetera. And today there is a case waiting in the European Court of Justice and I wonder why both said that the Turkish Association Agreement is purely an economic agreement. It is not. Turkey has not agreed to a customs union for the sake of having a trade arrangement. Turkey has accepted the customs union because according to our association agreement, Article 28, as soon as it becomes clear that Turkey can undertake obligations arising from membership, accession negotiations will start. So this association agreement is a pre-accession agreement and therefore I think it's due to the member states who joined the EU to accept the AKI Communiter altogether with the promises for membership and the treaty obligations, is the distinguished chairman is keeping showing me the time. I would stop here but try to answer questions.