The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria. The method that is used in this thesis is idea analysis. The EU has both official criteria, which are found in the foundation treaties, and unofficial criteria, which are the public and political opinions among the candidate countries and current EU member states. It is suggested that none of the criteria are more important than others; a candidate country must fulfill virtually all the official and unofficial criteria in order to gain EU membership. Although all criteria must be met, the application of the criteria is uneven between candidate countries. The EU does not treat countries differently when it comes to the official criteria. However, when it comes to the unofficial criteria, Turkey is treated differently from Romania and Poland. There is greater resistance to Turkey’s future membership, making it much more difficult for Turkey to reach the stage of full EU membership.

<p>The primary purpose of this thesis is to investigate the operation of membership criteria, which are applied against countries that wish to join the European Union (EU). More specifically, the importance of some criteria in comparison to others is considered. To answer this proposal, three questions are posed: What are the EU membership criteria? Are some criteria more important than other criteria? Does the EU treat candidate countries differently in applying the membership criteria? Three countries are used in this analysis, each country representing one recent enlargement round: Poland (2004), Romania (2007), and current candidate country Turkey. Both official documents, such as EU treaties, and unofficial documents such as statements from EU leaders are used to analyze the application of membership criteria. The method that is used in this thesis is idea analysis. The EU has both official criteria, which are found in the foundation treaties, and unofficial criteria, which are the public and political opinions among the candidate countries and current EU member states. It is suggested that none of the criteria are more important than others; a candidate country must fulfill virtually all the official and unofficial criteria in order to gain EU membership. Although all criteria must be met, the application of the criteria is uneven between candidate countries. The EU does not treat countries differently when it comes to the official criteria. However, when it comes to the unofficial criteria, Turkey is treated differently from Romania and Poland. There is greater resistance to Turkey’s future membership, making it much more difficult for Turkey to reach the stage of full EU membership.</p>

The European Union is now facing with the enormous enlargement processes, which comprise thirteen new countries. Different from the European Union member states, these candidate countries are suffering significant socio-economic problems and have to face with the need for adjustment of their regional policies, administrations and institutions. In this process, the EU is intervening actively into the development of the Central and Eastern European Countries&rsquo / regional policies and institutional structures. While twelve of these countries (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia) will be definitely the member states until the year of 2007, Turkey is not currently negotiating her membership and is highly backward status in comparison with the other candidate countries. In this context, the thesis study is composed of four main parts: 1. the changing system of the European Union regional policy, 2. the realized applications of the candidate countries in the field of regional policy after the year 1989, 3. the developments of the candidate countries&rsquo / institutional structures on regional policy, and 4. the position of Turkish regional policy and institutional structure. Basically, the thesis investigates how the European Union is following a similar system for the candidate countries in the field of regional policy and institutional structure and tries to provide significant outputs in Turkish case.

The purpose of the present study is to gain a more complete understanding of the impact of human and physical resource allocations and their interaction on students&rsquo / mathematical literacy skills across Turkey, member and candidate countries of European Union through the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. Hierarchical linear modeling (HLM) techniques were used separately for three different cultural settings using the database of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2003. The results indicated that students in Turkey, member and candidate countries of European Union who performed higher on the mathematical literacy assessment tended to have the following characteristics: (1) enrolled at higher grade levels, (2) more educational resources at home, (3) higher levels of mathematics self-efficacy, (4) lower levels of mathematics anxiety, (5) more positive self-concept in mathematics, (6) less preferences for memorization strategies, and (7) more positive disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons. As the performance of schools were considered, the higher average mathematics self-efficacy of students, the higher the mean school mathematical literacy performance. The influence on mathematical literacy assessment varied from school to school with respect to grade level and disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons in Turkey and European Union countries, with respect to grade level, mathematics self-efficacy, and disciplinary climate in mathematics in European Union candidate countries. Moreover, school size and mathematics student-teacher ratio at school influenced the disciplinary climate in mathematics lessons in Turkey / academic selectivity of the school influenced the grade level and mathematics self-efficacy in the candidate countries of European Union.

La Serbie n’est certainement pas ce que l’on pourrait désigner comme étant un Etat typique de l’Europe centrale et du Sud-Est. Alliée fidèle de la Russie et de la Chine, elle a subi les plus longues sanctions internationales en Europe et des bombardements de l’OTAN en 1999. Depuis la chute du régime de Milošević en 2000, l’ « enfant terrible » du continent a vocation à adhérer à l’Union européenne, or la tendance n’est clairement pas à l’élargissement. Face aux nombreuses crises (économique, migratoire et démocratique), l’UE parait impuissante à plusieurs égards. Symbole pendant longtemps du développement, de la paix et de la démocratie, elle doit faire face à une perte d’attractivité ces dix dernières années. Toutefois, malgré les doutes de part et d’autre, Bruxelles ne peut pas se permettre de ne pas tendre la main à la Serbie qui a une place centrale dans les Balkans, de par son poids démographique et sa position géostratégique. Le 1er mars 2012, la Serbie a officiellement obtenu son statut de candidat à l’UE. En signant l’accord d’association et de stabilisation, Belgrade s’est engagé à aligner sa législation sur l’acquis communautaire et donc à effectuer de nombreuses réformes. Or, sur fond d’acculturation et de déculturation juridique, des voix s’élèvent contre les réformes en chaîne dans le seul but d’intégrer l’institution européenne. L’un des objectifs de cette thèse est d’éclairer la nature et l’avancée de ces réformes à travers les critères politiques, définis lors du Conseil européen de Copenhague en 1993. Elle étudie les difficultés que la Serbie partage avec tous les Etats du Sud-Est de l’Europe et les difficultés qui lui sont propres, tout en questionnant sur la nécessité et les conséquences de ces changements. L’étude des négociations entre Bruxelles et Belgrade est aussi l’occasion d’apporter un éclairage sur le fonctionnement de l’institution européenne et de constater les limites de l’ambigüité constructive chère à l’UE. Finalement, le comportement de l’Union européenne à l’extérieur de ses frontières est symptomatique de son comportement à l’intérieur. / Serbia is certainly not a typical state of Central and Southeastern Europe. A loyal ally of Russia and China, it suffered the longest international sanctions in Europe and NATO bombings in 1999. Since the fall of the Milošević regime in 2000, the "enfant terrible" of the continent is destined to join the European Union. However, the trend is clearly not toward a enlargement. Facing multiple crises (economic, migratory and democratic), the EU seems powerless in many ways. Although the EU has been regarded as a symbol of development, peace and democracy, it has suffered a loss of attractiveness in the last ten years. However, despite doubts on both sides, Brussels cannot afford not to reach out to Serbia, which has a central position in the Balkans, because of its demographic weight and its geostrategic position. In March 2012 Serbia was granted EU candidate status. By signing the Stabilisation Agreement, Belgrade is committed to a gradual harmonization of legislation with the acquis of the European Communities and thus implement many reforms. However, in a context of legal acculturation and deculturation, some voices are rising to denounce a chain of reforms for the sole purpose of joining the European institution. One of our aims is to clarify the nature and progress of these reforms through the political criteria, defined at the Copenhagen European Council in 1993. We will hence study the difficulties that Serbia shares with all the states from Southeast Europe and its own problems, by questioning the necessity and consequences of these changes.The study of the negotiations between Brussels and Belgrade is also an opportunity to examine the functioning of the European institution and to note the limits of constructive ambiguity cherished by the EU. Finally, the behavior of the European Union outside its borders is symptomatic of its behavior inside.