Ratzinger on Turkey’s candidacy to join EU
BY JOHN L. ALLEN JR., Vatican Correspondent
(jallen@natcath.org)

The Word from Rome

National Catholic Reporter
August 13, 2004

Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal agency,
has come out against Turkey’s candidacy to join the European Union.

In an interview with the French publication Le Figaro, Ratzinger said
that Turkey has always been “in permanent contrast to Europe,” and
that it should look instead to play a leadership role in a network
of Islamic states.

“In the course of history, Turkey has always represented a different
continent,” Ratzinger said, giving as an example the Ottoman Empire,
which once invaded Europe as far as Vienna.

“Making the two continents identical would be a mistake,” he said. “It
would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of the cultural to
the benefit of economics.”

Ratzinger comes from Germany, where Turks make up the most numerous
component of a growing Islamic minority. He said Turkey “could try
to set up a cultural continent with neighboring Arab countries and
become the leading figure of a culture with its own identity.”

The comments echo those of then-Archbishop Jean-Louis Tauran, at the
time the Vatican’s foreign minister, in a May 2003 interview with
Corriere della Sera.

Tauran said that in the current European Union, “All the countries
share the same patrimony of values that are dear to Europe.” Rather
than adding Turkey, he suggested that it might be “more opportune”
to consider membership for Ukraine and Moldavia, two countries with
an Orthodox Christian heritage.

It should be noted, however, that neither Ratzinger nor Tauran
expressed the Holy See’s official position. When diplomats put the
question to senior Vatican officials in the Secretariat of State,
they are always told that the Holy See is “not necessarily opposed”
to Turkey joining the EU. The two caveats usually mentioned are:
the need for guarantees of religious liberty, including the country’s
Christian minority; and the need for Europe to formally acknowledge
its Christian roots.

Within broader circles of Catholic opinion, the pro-Turkey argument
usually is that Turkey, where secularism is enshrined by law and
policed vigilantly by the military, is the last, best chance for the
emergence of a moderate Islam. There are powerful national movements,
sometimes numbering in the millions, of faithful Muslims interested
in reconciling Islamic values with modernity. (One example would
be Fethullah Gulen and the “Turkish Islam” movement). The West,
according to this view, should be doing everything in its power to
ensure that the Turkish experiment does not fail.

The other view holds that Europe is already fatally confused about
what it represents, and adding a nation with a scant five percent
of its land mass in Europe, which represents a different cultural,
historical and religious tradition, would simply add to the fog. If
Turkey joins, why not Israel, as has sometimes been suggested? Why
not any of a number of African nations? The urgent European project,
according to this line of reasoning, is not willy-nilly expansion,
but the recovery of a sense of what Europe stands for – what do
Europeans believe? What are the values for which, if necessary,
they would be willing to lay down their lives?

At a practical policy level, the prospect of Turkish membership poses
several challenges:

* Turkey’s population is already 71 million and is
disproportionately young. By 2025, it would surpass Germany as the
largest single member-state in the EU. How could the union admit
Turkey, under its current rules, without Turkey becoming the 800-pound
gorilla in the room?

* Can the totalitarian style of rule to which
Turks are accustomed really be tweaked sufficiently to bring it into
compliance with the “Copenhagen criteria” on human rights and religious
freedom, without letting loose the contagion of Islamic fundamentalism?

* Would adding Turkey to the EU exacerbate the
immigration problem that many European nations already perceive? Under
EU rules, a migrant who reaches Turkey would theoretically be entitled
to move freely practically anywhere in Europe.

Obviously, these are complicated questions that require some political
heavy lifting. The EU is scheduled to decide in December if Turkey
should become a formal candidate for membership, and certainly the
Vatican will be watching. Comparing Ratzinger’s interview with what
one hears from the Secretariat of State, however, it seems less clear
what the Vatican will be saying.

CAPTION: “In the course of history, Turkey has always represented a
different continent. Making the two continents identical would be a
mistake. It would mean a loss of richness, the disappearance of the
cultural to the benefit of economics.” Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger Head
of the Vatican’s doctrinal agency