Eskisehir European Union Association is an independent, impartial, non-profit, non-governmental organization with the aim to promote mutual understanding, communication and elucidate between European Union and Turkey. Eskisehir European Union Association has become a legal entity with the name European Union News Association on 28.12.2005 with the B.05.4V.L.K 4.06.08.00/(K) 06-076-059/05-21270 numbered article released by the Turkish Republic Ankara Governorate Province Associations Directorate. European Union News Association was founded by expert journalists and academicians on the subject of EU. European Union News Association has become executive partner of the “EU for Women, Women for the Future of Turkey: Awareness Raising Program for EU and Enhancing Role of Women in Turkish Society” under the grant programme of “Broadcasting the EU” with reference number 2006/Comm17902/006. European Union News Association continues its work under the name of Eskisehir European Union Association with the association ID of 26-018-157 since 05.08.2019. First project under new name, titled “The Role of Women in the EU Membership Process” was completed with the partnership of Eskisehir Chamber of Commerce European Union Information Centre and AIESEC.
The association’s internet news portal is ABHaber.com. ABHaber.com internet portal sees the many problems and tensions between European Union and Turkey to have stemmed from the lack of deep mutual information between parties and aims to resolve this by publishing up-to-date news, analyses, comments, and files in both Turkish and English. So far, ABHaber.com has not compromised its understanding of impartial and independent journalism and in a short time has become one of the most trusted reference source on the subject of EU in Turkey. Many leading print and visual media organs use the articles and interviews published on ABHaber.com and follow the EU developments in Brussels and Ankara from ABHaber.com.
Today ABHaber is closely monitored not only by the media, but also by domestic and foreign decision-makers, defense and diplomatic circles, financial and academic institutions. ABHaber.com has been able to reach more than 2,800,000 individual users in 4 years with completely voluntary contributions. Nearly 60 percent of the ABHaber’s users are from Turkey, 35 percent from other European countries.
The current team of executive members who are selected by general assembly are consist of Erhan Akdemir, Ali Onur Özçelik, Duru Şahyar Akdemir, Çağrı Gezenler, and Alev Özlem Özdemir Karabağ.
Unprejudiced communication and strong dialog between the European Union and Turkey
- In order to overcome the mutual and deep lack of information between EU and Turkey, one of our missions is the creation of civil and academic projects and sharing of said projects on various media platforms used by Turkish and European public.
- Research, evaluate, and elucidate the economical, social, cultural, societal, sectoral, and regional consequences of European Union membership, and the required changes during the accession process, and contribute to the accession negotiation works.
- Organizing and encouraging conferences, panels, exchange programs, etc. which will be attended by students and academicians from both Turkey and Europe
The essential aim of the association is to empower relationships between Turkey and European Union by raising awareness on EU issues. Gender Equality is the vital component of human rights, which is also adopted by EU, as one of the main criteria mentioned in Copenhagen Criterias of the European Union. Firmly supporting this aim, the association tries to develop projects to fulfill the gaps between men and women gender stereotypes. As a prior goal, advancing women individual participation in decision-making process is the framework of the current and future working areas of the association.
In this framework, the association has achieved two important projects. The first one has been founded by the EU funds, which was named “EU for Women, Women for the Future of Turkey”. The second one, titled as “The Role of Women in the EU Membership Process” was supported by the Eskişehir Chamber of Commerce-EU Information Network Center, AISEC and Eskişehir EU Association.