TURKEY’S EU ENTRY IS LITTERED WITH OBSTACLES
By LINDA S. HEARD

Gulf News, United Arab Emirates
December 21, 2004

Special to Gulf News

<!– Special to Gulf News Linda S. Heard: Turkey’s EU entry is
littered with obstacles –>Even as the Turkish people are rightly
celebrating their country’s first step on the road to EU accession,
their leaders know that there is many a slip not least the desire of
certain EU members to keep the union as a wealthy and elitist
Christian club.

Although negotiations with Turkey are due to begin in earnest during
October 2005, France and Austria are already touting the holding of
national referendums in the full knowledge that their respective
publics are largely against the Turkish bid.

Given that one member country can veto the entire process, Turkey’s
entrance could be thwarted almost from the get-go.

One of the future sticking points could be France’s insistence that
when talks begin proper, Turkey should acknowledge the mass killings
of Armenians from 1915 as a “tragedy”.

Armenians contend that some 1.5 million of their people were killed
or forcibly exiled during Ottoman rule under a policy of deliberate
genocide, while Turks maintain they fell victim to civil unrest.

Discriminatory

Whatever the truth, this requirement appears to be discriminatory on
France’s part some are referring to it as a red herring since Britain
wasn’t required to apologise for its flattening of the German city of
Dresden prior to its entry, France was not forced to apologise to
Algeria for its vicious occupation of that land, and Germany did not
have to come up with mea culpas to all and sundry over Nazi
brutalities.

Turkey’s reluctance to recognise the Republic of Cyprus could prove
to be a further stumbling block. Even as headlines in the Turkish
dailies Hurriyet and Yeni Safak were boasting, “We did it” and
lauding Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his coup at putting
Turkey on the first step of the EU rung, while side-stepping this
sticky issue, the Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos was
threatening to throw a spoke in the wheel.

“The Republic of Cyprus has the right not to consent to the start of
entry talks,” he said during a television address. In reality, Turkey
will eventually be forced into a de facto recognition of the Republic
of Cyprus as part of the customs union but says its negotiations with
the whole does not constitute its explicit recognition of a single
participant.

Even if Turkey successfully jumps the hurdles of public referendums
over its membership, its apology to Armenians and manages to mollify
Papadopoulos, the EU Commission has warned there are no guarantees of
Turkish entry. Indeed, it has announced it would recommend talks be
broken off “in the case of a serious and persistent breach of the
principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and
fundamental freedoms -“.

The Commission has also recommended in a total departure from EU
regulations applying to current members that the free movement of
Turkish workers throughout the Union be curbed.

Turkey has made it clear that this is unacceptable, saying it will
refuse second-class status. There is no doubt that ageing and
shrinking European populations need a fresh injection of youthful
migratory workers, not least to cough up their pensions. The problem
many EU states have with Turkish workers is related to religious
demographics at a time when the French, for example, feel threatened
by their burgeoning Muslim population and the small percentage of
extremists within.

At the same time, Holland is coping with a wave of anti-Islamic
sentiment subsequent to the slaying of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by a
youth who objected to his portrayal of Muslim women, while Austria is
beset by the rise of right-wing xenophobic political parties.

Germany already has its fair share of Turkish migrants, and complains
they are reluctant to assimilate while conveniently forgetting that
until 1974, its guest workers were forbidden from bringing in their
wives and children.

Until recently its half-million Turkish-born citizens along with 2.5
million Turkish workers within its borders were barely tolerated.

Indeed, former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt recently told a
newspaper that bringing millions of Turkish Gastarbeiter to Germany
was a mistake, adding, multiculturalism can only work under
authoritarian regimes.

Given the hostility experienced by Turks in Germany, there is little
wonder they have clung together and to their own culture.

The US president’s promises to back Turkey’s bid and to use his
leverage with his European pals has rubbed certain EU states up the
wrong way, including France.

Last June, Chirac lambasted George Bush for suggesting Turkey should
be given an accession date, saying his interference was comparable
with France telling the United States how to manage its own relations
with Mexico.

Permanent rift

Ian Bremmer, writing in the International Herald Tribune wonders why
Bush is so eager to see his Turkish ally ensconced in the bosom of
the EU. “Turkey’s inclusion in the EU causes real trouble for the
United States,” he writes, “because it makes a permanent rift between
Europe and the United States along the lines seen recently over Iraq
(when Turkey’s position was already closer to Paris and Berlin than
to Washington) much more likely”.

Bremmer further points out that “the addition of Turkey’s armed
forces makes a common EU defence more feasible which makes Nato less
necessary” and suggests Turkey’s current amicable relations with both
the US and Israel would likely cool.

There is no doubt that it is in Europe’s interests to draw Turkey,
which is geographically partly within the European continent, into
the fold.

If Turkey were to be rejected out of hand, it could be forced into an
even closer relationship with the United States or, alternatively, it
could throw in its diplomatic lot with Russia or, even, with its
neighbours Iran and Syria.

EU members should put aside their differences, quash their irrational
fears vis-a-vis the Turkish bid and extend its collective hand before
Turkey, tired of Europe’s endless procrastination and being
humiliatingly singled out, may choose to erect an iron fist.