When to talk Turkey

Sep 15th 2005
The Economist print edition

Wrangling over Turkey’s entry talks reflects broader doubts about the
European Union’s direction

ENLARGEMENT has been one of the European Union’s great successes,
bringing stability and democracy to parts of the continent which have
had too little of either. But the policy is about to be put to its
biggest test. On October 3rd, the EU is due to open negotiations with
the biggest and most important country to have asked for membership so
far. That country is Turkey.

Turkey first applied to join what was then the EEC in 1959. The two
sides signed an association agreement in 1963 (implicitly accepting that
Turkey could be a candidate); a customs union in 1995; and the EU
officially accepted Turkey as a candidate for entry in 1999. Turkey has,
in short, been asking to join Europe for so long that its application is
starting to look old and moth-eaten-so much so that some diplomats and
politicians seem to have forgotten the strategic reasons for
entertaining it.

The long period of fobbing off Turkey is now over. Last December, EU
heads of government promised to start negotiations on October 3rd if
Turkey met just two more conditions (which it has done). To get this
far, Turkey has taken such dramatic steps as abolishing the death
penalty, accepting Kurdish as a language in schools, scrapping state
security courts, revising the penal code and tightening civilian control
over the army.

This is a last chance, for both sides. Turkish patience with EU
obstructiveness is running out, as is European willingness to accept new
members. Last December, the French, German and Dutch leaders, among
others, agreed to start talks. They might not do so now-France and the
Netherlands after their lost referendums on the EU constitution, Germany
because of its impending election. Angela Merkel, the most likely
winner, has said she will respect European processes that are under way
when she takes office, which would include the Turkish talks if they
start on October 3rd. But if the date slips, Ms Merkel might want to
reconsider: she is strongly against Turkey’s membership.

All this makes it worrying that, as curtain-up nears, the EU is
suffering from a bad case of stage fright. Two issues threaten to abort
the talks: Turkey’s refusal to recognise Cyprus, and the desire of some
countries to offer Turkey something less than full membership. It is
obvious to all (including the Turks) that Turkey must recognise Cyprus
eventually; indeed, that is one reason why the Cypriots and Greeks have
supported the entry talks. The question is whether it must do so before
they even start. This week, the French government accepted a diplomatic
declaration that would let the talks begin without recognition. Cyprus
still objects, but nobody pays much heed to its views.

Yet even if this first problem responds to treatment, it is not certain
the second will. This is the threat that some members might insist on
putting a “privileged partnership” into the framework document for
negotiations, as a back-up in case membership talks fail. The Turks see
this as an insult. Wrangling is likely to continue until the last
minute. The best that can be said is that the chances of the talks
starting on time are greater than they were two weeks ago and probably
better than 50:50.

Answering the eastern question

All of these last-minute wobbles reflect an underlying ambiguity about
Turkey. Clearly, it is a special case. By 2015 it will be larger than
any other EU state by population, which has unsettling implications for
its voting weight and representation in the European Parliament. The EU
spends most of its money on farming and aid to poor regions-and Turkey
is amply provided with both. In every previous enlargement, there were
doubts about the readiness of the applicants to assume the obligations
of membership. This time the biggest doubts may be about the ability of
the club to absorb the would-be member.

Yet rejecting Turkey’s bid for membership would do little to solve the
difficulties its application raises. The budget needs to be reformed
whether Turkey is in or out. Europe’s economies must create more jobs
whether or not Turkish workers get free movement of labour (which they
probably won’t). Popular dissatisfaction with the EU exists regardless
of Turkish membership. A majority of Europeans say they are undecided
about Turkey, rather than actively hostile.

Were Turkish membership to be rejected, the EU’s existential problems
would not disappear. Indeed, they might get worse. For a start,
rejection would cause a crisis in Turkey. The government is an uneasy
coalition of religious nationalists and westernising moderates. It is
under strain from a renewed upsurge of Kurdish terrorist violence. A
simultaneous failure of the government’s EU policy might break apart the
coalition, and even lead some Turks to look for an alternative such as a
link with Russia or other countries to Turkey’s east.

The problems for Europe would be less dramatic but no less profound.
After September 11th, taking Turkey into the club is no longer just a
question of helping a big and strategically important country to
modernise. It is a test of whether the EU, and the West as a whole, has
any role in encouraging moderate and democratic Islam. To precipitate a
crisis in the nearest big Muslim country, and one that is both
democratic and secular, would be a colossal blunder. Turkey may not be a
model for democracy throughout the Middle East: Arabs certainly do not
see it as such. But rejecting Turkey would still be taken by many Arab
countries as rank hypocrisy or even racism by the West.

A few Europeans might justify the wreckage as a necessary cost of
defending EU integration. But since the problems of popular support, the
budget and so on exist regardless of Turkey, its rejection is unlikely
to produce the “deeper” Europe they crave. The French and Dutch
referendums have kyboshed further integration for quite a while, and
perhaps for ever. Rejecting Turkish membership would probably halt other
enlargements too. Europe would end up neither wider nor deeper; merely
static, and with its south-eastern border in turmoil.