Why is it that Turkey had those Brussels pouts?
By Philip Robins, Special to The Daily Star

The Daily Star, Lebanon
Dec 24 2004

When is a diplomatic triumph not a triumph? When the negotiations
involve Turkey and the European Union.

Commentators and participants are still scratching their heads trying
to understand why Turkey is not celebrating the outcome of the
European summit last Friday. At that meeting the EU took the
momentous decision to open accession negotiations with Turkey on
October 3, 2005. By doing so, it paved the way for a converging
relationship between the EU and Turkey, one that is most likely to
end in Turkey becoming a member of the union.

In one move, the European Council dispatched all the idle chatter in
the run-up to the Brussels summit. The meeting confirmed that there
was no place for further discussions about whether Turkey was
technically part of the geography of Europe, or whether its
religious, cultural or national character barred it from membership.
Thus, Brussels 2004 is set to take its place alongside the other
historic thresholds in bilateral relations – notably the 1963 Ankara
Agreement, the 1995 Customs Union decision, and Helsinki 1999, which
recognized Turkey as a candidate for EU membership.

The key issue in the Brussels meeting was always the date. A detailed
progress report on Turkey had been prepared by the European
Commission just two months before which had recommended the opening
of accession talks. Its only failing had been to leave blank the
space for the precise date. While Ankara had optimistically appealed
for an April 2005 start, it had let it be known that what it really
opposed was any attempt to delay a decision, the so-called “date for
a date.” With the more Turco-skeptic of Europeans talking about 2006,
any date in 2005 must be seen as a success. Moreover, October 2005
allows Turkey to commence negotiations under the collaborative
oversight of the U.K. presidency.

Not only did Turkey get the date it wanted, but also the cost of
progressing to the next stage of the game was, in the end, remarkably
modest. Only Cyprus featured in the 11th hour discussions on Turkey.
That means that a load of other potentially problematic issues, from
human rights to women’s rights, from Armenian massacres to the Kurds,
did not intrude. Instead, they were all subsumed under the European
Council’s important blandishment that “Turkey sufficiently fulfils
the Copenhagen political criteria” for membership. All that the EU
wanted on these issues was the modest requirement that the liberal
legislation recently adopted should actually be implemented.

Even on Cyprus, Turkey was aided by its friends in the EU. It was
recognized that if Turkey is to negotiate with the EU in October, it
must for practical purposes recognize its 25 constituent members.
However, Ankara remains wary of formally recognizing the Greek
government in Nicosia as representing the whole island while the
Turkish Cypriots of the North are disadvantaged by the absence of a
political settlement. The compromise was a diplomatic sleight of
hand, whereby a protocol extending Turkey’s Customs Union to include
the 10 new members of the EU, Cyprus among them, would be added to
the Ankara Agreement prior to Oct. 3. This amounted to political
recognition without legal recognition.

If these, then, are the realities of the Brussels summit concerning
EU-Turkey relations why all the long faces? Why did Turkish Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan come so close to leaving Brussels in a
huff before agreeing to the deal? Why did the parliamentary
opposition in Ankara, on the right and the left, attack the outcome?
Why has Erdogan found himself on the defensive over the deal?

The key to answering these important but puzzling questions may be
found in the following two statements. One, in international
diplomacy style is often the equal of substance in its impact. Two,
it is virtually impossible to over-estimate the importance ascribed
to the Cyprus issue on the part of the Turkish establishment.
Together, they betray an absence of trust that is arguably the single
most serious deficiency in the EU-Turkish relationship, even at such
a time of progress.

For the Turks, with the thinnest of skins, the atmospherics of the
Brussels summit were always of disproportionate importance. This was
doubly unfortunate. First, because a belated public debate in key
member states about the proper long-term relationship between Turkey
and the EU had resulted in some blunt talking by domestic
politicians.

The Turks had, for example, allowed themselves to become rattled by
such meaningless gestures as Austrian and French leaders promising a
national referendum on Turkish membership, that is to say probably
sometime between 2015 and 2020.

Second, because at EU gatherings the continental European tradition
of last-minute, grubby, back room deal-making has become the modus
operandi of collective decision-making, and Nicosia now sits on the
inside. So, when the Cyprus issue re-emerged to eclipse the more
orthodox issues of the political criteria, Erdogan smelled a rat.
Only the hurried reassurances of Turkey’s friends kept the prime
minister in town and helped him to refocus on the big picture.

But the audience in Turkey had already picked up on the misgivings of
their delegation. The opportunism of ambition and vested interest
then kicked in. The leader of the opposition, Deniz Baykal, attacked
Erdogan for a sell-out on Cyprus, reflecting his closeness to the old
political establishment in Turkey. The rising “big man” on the
conservative right, Mehmet Agar, also voiced his criticism, as it
served his objective of rallying the secular right behind his
aspirant leadership. Mainstream Islamists, too, dissed the deal,
reflecting their ambivalence toward the growing relationship with the
EU. This may in part explain why Erdogan scampered off to Damascus
soon after his return from Brussels.

In some respects all of this counts for little. The EU-Turkish
agreement is a done deal. Erdogan knows that his interests are best
served by the opening of accession talks next October. The political
opposition in Turkey remains fractured and ineffectual. While he may
not achieve a bounce in the opinion polls on the back of the Brussels
accord, Erdogan remains the dominant force in Turkish politics. His
supporters make reassuring noises about Turkey’s eventually coming
round, even on the Cyprus issue, in time for the autumn’s opening
ceremonies.

Yet the absence of a joint celebration following the Dec. 17 decision
was not without cost. What is beyond denial is that the road to EU
membership for Turkey will be long and at times difficult. Turks and
Europeans will need the cherished memories of earlier triumphs to
keep themselves positive and working toward the shared goal of full
membership in the years to come.

Philip Robins is a lecturer in politics and international relations
at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of St Antony’s College. His
“Suits and Uniforms. Turkish Foreign Policy Since the Cold War”
(Hurst & University of Washington Press) was published last year. He
wrote this commentary for THE DAILY STAR