The Standard (St. Catharines, Ontario)
September 21, 2005 Wednesday
Final Edition

EU’s door still open for Turkey: Close vote in German election could
prevent de-facto veto of Ankara’s membership application

by Gwynne Dyer, Special to The Standard

The near-tie in the German election, in which Chancellor Gerhard
Schroeder came from 13 percentage points behind conservative
challenger Angela Merkel in late August to less than one point behind
her by the Sept. 18 vote, has thrown German politics into turmoil,
but one thing is clear. The door through which Turkey hopes to enter
the European Union, which Merkel had promised to slam shut, is still
open. The entry negotiations begin Oct. 3 and Turkey is still a
candidate for full membership.

Merkel launched a high-profile campaign last month to block Turkey’s
entry, sending letters to EU leaders in other countries asking them
to offer Turkey not full membership but only “privileged
partnership.” “We are firmly convinced,” she wrote, “that Turkey’s
membership would overtax the EU economically and socially and
endanger the process of European integration.” In other words, Turks
are poor (though she did not object to other candidates like Bulgaria
and Romania that are not significantly richer), they’re Muslim, and
there are far too many of them.

It was a cynical appeal to the anti-Turkish and anti-Muslim
prejudices of German voters who are already uncomfortable with the
growing diversity of their county (about three per cent of Germany’s
80 million people are of Turkish origin), and fear a further influx
of immigrants if Turkey joins the EU. It was also bit late in the day
to raise such objections, since Turkey has been a recognized
candidate for full EU membership for the past six years. But if
Angela Merkel had become the leader of a strong majority government
in Germany, the biggest country in the EU, the Turks would have been
betrayed and rejected once again.

Turkey has tied itself into knots in order to meet the EU’s standards
for membership, and that has been a good thing for the Turks, who now
live in a far more just, equal and democratic country than they did a
decade ago. But they do feel that they have kept their side of the
bargain, and only six months ago, all three of the most powerful EU
countries, Germany, France and Britain, firmly backed Turkey’s
membership.

But then came the French and Dutch votes last May and June that
rejected the proposed new EU constitution and the whole scene turned
sour.

France wavered first, with new prime minister Dominique de Villepin
pandering to anti-Muslim sentiments in France by sounding very cool
about the prospects for Turkish membership. Then Angela Merkel in
Germany went further, advocating only “privileged partnership” for
Turkey — and though Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder still backed
Turkey’s membership, her election victory seemed so certain that
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul felt compelled to warn that
“should (the EU) place anything short of full membership (on the
table), or any new conditions, we will walk away. And this time it
will be for good.” Only Britain still backed Turkey unequivocally.

To make matters worse, Turkey announced that while it would sign a
customs deal opening up trade with all 25 EU members, it would still
not recognize the government of the Republic of Cyprus, one of the 10
countries that joined the EU in May, 2004. French president Jacques
Chirac promptly tried to turn that declaration into a proof of
Turkish bad faith, insisting that it “poses political and legal
problems and is not in the spirit expected of a candidate to the
Union.”

In fact, it was quite reasonable, since Cyprus has been divided since
a Greek-Cypriot coup in 1974 that aimed to unite the island with
Greece triggered a Turkish invasion to protect the Turkish-speaking
minority. The government of the “Republic of Cyprus” rules only the
Greek-speaking part of the island. Last year, both the
Turkish-Cypriots and Turkey itself supported a United Nations plan to
reunite Cyprus while the Greek-Cypriots rejected it, so Abdullah Gul
felt fully justified in refusing to recognize the current government
in Nicosia as the sole representative of all Cypriots — but he did
promise “to establish relations with the new partnership government
that will emerge following a comprehensive settlement on Cyprus.”

Even the start of Turkey’s membership talks early next month was
looking in doubt. Cheat the Turks on that and they would surely walk
away, abandoning the vision of a broader Europe that rises above the
old mutual fear and suspicion between Christians and Muslims, and
also ending all hope that countries east of Turkey, like Georgia and
Armenia, might one day qualify for EU membership. The situation
looked pretty grim — and then Angela Merkel stumbled.

She may yet end up as chancellor of Germany at the head of some
awkward three-party coalition — the outcome may not be known for a
month or more — but it would not be the kind of strong, cohesive
government that could impose a de-facto German veto on Turkish
membership of the EU. And it could even be the Comeback Kid himself,
Gerhard Schroeder, a strong supporter of Turkey, who forms the next
German government.

As for Cyprus, EU ambassadors agreed in Brussels last Monday that
while Ankara must eventually recognize the government of Cyprus, that
can happen at any point in the entry negotiations, which are expected
to last up to 10 years. That leaves plenty of time for a settlement
that includes Turkish-Cypriots, too, so Ankara will go along with it.
One more crisis has been surmounted and the talks will begin Oct. 3
as planned.

Gwynne Dyer is a London-based independent journalist whose articles
are published in 45 countries.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress