Scripps Howard News Service
December 29, 2004, Wednesday 12:24 PM Eastern Time

Turkey’s future

SOURCE: The Providence Journal

The European Union crossed a threshold recently that, just a few
years back, would have seemed unimaginable. The members decided that
negotiations could begin on the admission of Turkey to their union.

This is good news for Turkey, which has sought E.U. membership since
1987. But of course, admission is not a matter of mailing an
application to Brussels and awaiting the verdict. Although Turkey has
made substantial progress in the past years toward bringing its
system of governance into alignment with Europe’s, it has a long way
to go.

The Turkish democracy remains strongly influenced by the military,
and the country’s economy is still some distance from basic
free-market principles.

Turkey’s treatment of minorities remains unsatisfactory, its
human-rights record is decidedly mixed, and freedoms of religion and
speech are far from the standards in Europe. Not least, Turkey
continues to deny the history of the Armenian genocide, and the
Turkish army occupies a third of the territory of a member of the
European Union – Cyprus – while refusing to recognize the Cypriot
government. All of these facts are incompatible with E.U. membership.

Talks are expected to last some dozen years, and in that time Turkey
may well transform itself to satisfy the European Union. If so, this
will mark a new day for Turks, and greatly benefit two immediate
neighbors, Armenia and Greece, which suffer from longtime Turkish
hostility and (in Armenia’s case) a devastating economic blockade.
The Turkish government has a sincere desire to move the country
Westward, and the process of E.U. accession should yield innumerable
benefits.

Two questions, however, shadow the process: While the Turkish
government strongly favors E.U. membership, it is not clear that
Turkish citizens do.

The second question is more complex. Turkey sits astride the border
of Europe and Asia, and is a longtime member of NATO, yet whether the
homeland of the onetime Ottoman Empire is “European” is debatable.
Turkey is a very big, poor and overwhelmingly Muslim country: Can it
be integrated into a European economic, political and cultural system
that is now very different from its own? Moreover, Turkey would be
the largest member of the E.U., which is already strained by several
comparatively non-affluent members.

None of these obstacles is insuperable, and while many Europeans have
reservations about Turkey, many others think that Turkish E.U.
membership makes sense. The next years will be a testing time: for
Turkey, for Europe, and for the meaning and future of European
identity and unity.