The Hindu, India
January 27, 2005
AN UNCERTAIN WAIT
by Vaiju Naravane
CAN TURKEY be considered a European country? The answer to that
question was given at the 25-member European Union summit in Brussels
on December 17, 2004, when heads of state and government agreed to
formally open talks on Turkey’s accession to the select European club
at whose door Ankara has been knocking with singular persistence
since 1963.
But the answer, when it came, was a conditional one. While EU leaders
gave a date – October 3, 2005 – for the opening of accession talks,
they also warned that the negotiations could drag on for up to 20
years, with no firm promises of membership at the end. This sets
Turkey apart from all other candidate countries for which accession
talks have been close-ended.
By responding with a conditional yes, EU leaders were in fact turning
the proposition around. Implicit in their response is the question:
is Turkey fit to be in Europe? With the onus of proof lying with
Ankara. For the past decade, Europe has been dragging its feet over
opening formal membership talks with Turkey, shifting the goalposts
each time the Turks pressed for a firm answer.
The objections to Turkey joining Europe are numerous: Turkey is large
with a growing population of 70 million people. Despite its secular
Constitution, it is not considered fully democratic because of the
preponderant role the army has played in its recent history. Its
treatment of the minorities and its human rights record do not in any
way match European standards. Turkey is poor and undereducated and it
will cost billions of Euros in development aid to allow the Turks to
catch up with everyone else.
But the overriding principal argument against Turkey’s adhesion to
the EU is that of religion, culture, history and geography.
Straddling East and West, sharing its frontiers as much with Europe –
Greece, Bulgaria – as with the Middle East – Syria, Iraq, Iran –
Turkey falls between two cultural stools.
Like many other European thinkers and commentators both from Europe’s
Right and Left, Jean-Louis Bourlanges, a French member of the
European Parliament, questions Turkey’s suitability to join the
European club on civilisational grounds. “Turkey is not part Europe
and it is foolish to persist in building a multi-civilisational EU
with unlimited, ever-extending borders. Turkey’s adhesion must
involve, first and foremost, a redefinition of the European project
with citizens deciding whether they want an EU devoid of specific
civilisational underpinnings or whether they wish to limit it to
borders inherited from history and geography,” he says.
These geographic, cultural, religious and political borders, he says,
are clear and set in the Bosporous Straits. While the contributions
of Turkey to Western institutions such as NATO, the OSCE
(Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), the European
Council and the United Nations have been valuable, and must not be
underestimated, they do not make Turkey European. Does Europe really
wish to share its borders with Syria, Iran or Iraq? Does it wish to
import the endemic instability of the Middle East? Can Europe allow
itself to be undermined from within, he asks.
Those opposed to extending Europe’s borders up to Syria and Iran feel
such an Europe would have little consistence. It would be
overstretched and dysfunctional in budgetary, judicial and
institutional terms. Turkey’s adhesion would make Europe borderless,
powerless, ill-defined and irrelevant as an international player.
Opponents of Turkey view Washington’s continued pressure on the EU to
accept Turkey’s membership bid as proof of America’s Machiavellian
intention to further weaken its main rival in the international arena
by saddling it with a time bomb, both in terms of retarded and costly
economic development, and the Trojan Horse of a large and growing
Muslim population.
Supporters say the absorption of Turkey should pose no problem since
Europe is no longer a solid unified bloc of developed economies but
rather a mosaic of nations big and small with variable geometry,
moving in concentric circles at differing speeds. An excluded Turkey
could not be an effective firewall against Islamic fundamentalism and
Middle Eastern instability. Anchoring Turkey in the EU would reassure
Europe’s growing population of Muslims (an estimated 9 million
scattered mainly across France, Germany, Britain, Italy and Spain).
Turing away Turkey would send a negative signal to the fastest
growing segment of Europe’s population.
Writer Guy Sorman, a passionate supporter of Turkey’s EU bid, says:
“If Europe is to build a new and constructive rapport with the
Islamic world, one opposed to what the Americans have done in the
Middle East, it is imperative that Turkey is allowed into the EU.
Turkey is a living example of a compromise between secularism and
Islam, a reminder that choices other than purely confrontational ones
are both possible and available. Rejecting Turkey means closing our
horizons, refusing a global role, accepting American hegemony.”
In the past three years, there has been a significant shift in
European public opinion over the Turkish question. This is closely
related to the aftermath of 9/11 and an increase in Islamophobia
across Europe. A recent pan-European poll shows that public opinion
in several countries, including France, Germany, Austria, Poland and
Greece, is opposed to Turkey’s accession. In France, for example, 67
per cent of the population would vote no’ if a referendum were to be
held today. French President Jacques Chirac came in for some severe
criticism when he announced he was in favour of allowing in the
Turks, even though his cautious approbation was punctuated by an
impressive series of ifs and buts.
Critics of full membership for Turkey have proposed a special
partnership regime whereby Turkey would be granted special privileges
but would be formally kept out of the Union. Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has already rejected such an offer saying Turkey
would settle for all or nothing.
A significant stumbling block in the negotiations process could be
the status of Cyprus and Turkey’s stubborn refusal to recognise the
island state’s pro-Greek Government. A row over Cyprus, which joined
the EU in May 2004, almost derailed the talks until a last minute
solution was found, with Turkey agreeing to sign a protocol extending
its 1963 association agreement with the EU to cover all
member-states, including Cyprus. Ankara insists this does not amount
to a formal recognition of the Mediterranean island state. However,
over the next two decades that the talks are expected to last, Turkey
will have to work out some acceptable solution. Ankara now says it
will turn again to the United Nations and the good offices of Kofi
Annan whose peace plan was accepted by Turkish Cypriots in Northern
Cyprus but rejected by Greek Cypriots.
It is difficult at this stage to evaluate the economic impact of an
eventual integration of Turkey. Clearly, because of its size, its
potential but also its economic weakness, Turkey will pose an
enormous challenge to the EU. With its 70 million people, the
adhesion of Turkey alone, with its mainly agricultural economy and
accompanying poverty, will be equivalent to the addition of 10 new
members last May.
Figures published by the European Union appear staggering.
Simulations based on Turkish integration in 2015 suggest Turkey would
receive 28 billion euros in “catching up” aid by 2025 – a third of
the EU’s current budget.
France and Germany, who would like to limit their EU payments to 1
per cent of GDP would have to contribute significantly more. If they
refuse, other beneficiary countries, such as the new entrants from
Eastern Europe, would receive less. With Turkish per capita income at
28 per cent of the EU average, every region of Turkey would be
eligible for extra development funding, a fact that makes weaker EU
economies baulk.
So is Turkey fit to be part of Europe? The true answer to this
question will come in the next decade. The EU has said Turkey is “not
a candidate like the others.” Which is a diplomatic way of pointing
to the religious question while underlining several difficulties:
that Turkey will be the most populous nation of Europe in 20 years
with tremendous regional disparities within its borders. Turkey has a
long, long way to go before qualifying. Its human rights record has
to improve. It has to bring itself in line with the democratic and
institutional principles that govern European nations. Healthcare,
education, treatment of minorities, the status of women, freedom of
expression – all need looking at. But Turkey must also work on and
reconcile itself to its own past by recognising the Armenian genocide
of 1915.
As the French daily, Le Monde , said in an editorial: “One of the
major virtues of the European Union is to encourage applicants to
reform, to modernise themselves, to respect the rights of minorities,
to break with hegemonist temptations. There is no reason why this
educational virtue should not work with the Turks. For them the
choice is clear: if they meet the conditions set by the European
Union, they could become a full member in 10 to 15 years. It is now
for the Turks to seize this opportunity.”