EUbusiness, UK
July 19 2004
Turkish PM’s visit to France re-opens debate on EU membership
A three-day visit to France by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan starting Monday re-opened the debate as to whether Turkey, a
secular country with nearly 70 million Muslims, should be admitted
into the European Union.
Most French newspapers dedicated significant coverage to the visit
and examined the question, which has divided the political class.
President Jacques Chirac’s ruling conservative Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP) has come out against the idea, even though Chirac
himself favours Turkey eventually joining the EU but does not see it
as ready yet. The opposition Socialists are backing Ankara’s bid.
Erdogan’s visit is seen as a key opportunity to persuade an EU
heavyweight to back the accession bid before the European Commission
released in October a report on Turkey’s democratisation progress.
That report is to form the basis of a decision EU leaders will make
in December on whether to formally open membership talks with Turkey.
In a sign of the issue’s sensitivity, Chirac will not receive Erdogan
until Tuesday.
French Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin will play host by greeting
Erdogan at his official offices after his arrival late Monday.
During his time in Paris, the Turkish leader will meet other
political leaders, business chiefs and representatives of France’s
Turkish community.
Liberation, a left-leaning daily, firmly planted the Turkish flag in
the EU in an editorial, saying that, while Turkey was historically
separate from Europe, its common adherence to secularity meant it
ought to join European institutions.
“There is no convincing reason to think that Islam is not by its
essence incompatible with democracy and secularity,” it said.
The right-leaning Le Figaro, however, listed reasons to doubt
Turkey’s readiness, among them cultural differences, “the reality of
the genocide of the Armenians” in 1915 during the disintegration of
the Ottoman Empire and the continuing “military occupation in the
north of Cyprus”.
It tempered that position a little by printing an essay by a
political science professor, Dominique Reynie, who noted that Turkey
was a member of NATO and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development, had a separation of religion and state, and allowed
women to vote.
“All of democratic Turkey has placed its hopes in an opening of
negotiations,” he wrote.
But a companion essay by a UMP deputy, Jacques Myard, warned of a
“utopian” vision of a vast “federal Europe” encompassing Turkey which
would fail because of “the clash of cultures and national realities”.
Chirac has taken a cautious stance on Turkey, at the risk of being
seen as blowing hot and cold.
In April, he said he wanted to Turkey eventually admitted, but —
just days before the bloc expanded to 25 states by taking in mainly
former Communist central European countries — he said conditions for
entry were still some way off.
Then last month, US President George W. Bush raised European hackles
by putting his weight behind Turkey’s bid in the hopes that it would
become an example for other Muslim states to follow.
“I will remind the people of this good country that you ought to be
given a date by the EU for your eventual acceptance into the EU,”
Bush said in Ankara on June 27 before attending a NATO summit in
Istanbul.
Chirac, who has maintained prickly relations with Bush since the
run-up to the US invasion of Iraq, shot back that the US leader had
gone too far.
“It would be like me telling the United States how to run its affairs
with Mexico,” he said.