Abstract
Development of Roma Rights in Turkey in the Lights of Progress Reports (1998–2013)
In 31 July 1959, shortly after the creation of the European Economic Community in 1958, Turkey made its first application to join. Ankara Treaty which was signed on 12 September 1963 that the legal basis of the relationship between the parties. Turkey applied for full membership in 14 April 1987. Turkey gained candidate status of the EU in the EU Summit held in Helsinki in 1999. In the EU Summit in 16 - 17December 2004 in Brussels decided to launch negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005. On the other hand, progress reports prepared for each candidate and they are making an assessment of the candidate countries in the context of the Copenhagen Criterias. This reports has been prepared by the European Commission to assess developments in the candidate countries since 1988. These reports makes quite important analysis to make an evalua-tion in the field of human rights as in many areas. In this reports the problems of Roma and Roma rights issues has comes to become an important agenda item in the relations between the European Union and candidate countries. In this framework in this article Progress Reports for Turkey prepared by the European Commission will be analyzed in context of Roma rights. Regarding this examination development of Roma rights in Turkey will be considered.<
Keywords
Human Rights, Roma Rights, Progress Reports, European Union