ONE MORE PUSH!
Selcuk Gultasli
Zaman, Turkey
Oct 3 2005
The rule that “every draft the EU prepares about Turkey does not get
its final form without getting toughened” did not change. Where did the
Cyprus declaration begin, and where did it end? The EU virtually said
to the Greek Cypriots “Write it down, we will put a signature on it.”
The declaration for which the Greek Cypriots, with the support of
the French, took EU as hostage turned out to be a legally binding
paper despite the British rhetoric that “it is not a legally binding
document and will be forgotten within six months, why give a damn?”
Moreover, even if the EU does ever forget something, it will be
decisions for the benefit of Turkey. The commitment given by Greece
back in 1981 that she would not interfere in Turkey-EU relations,
the declaration from France, Germany, Netherlands and Italy in 1998
declaring that “the Greek Cypriots will not become a member of the
EU before a solution is reached in Cyprus”, the Council’s decisions
that will bring an end to the isolation of the Turkish Cypriots in
2004 were all too easily forgotten.
The framework document is also becoming more stringent. It has not
yet been approved, and it probably won’t be until the last days and
many elements -excluding the privileged partnership that Turkey cannot
accept- will be introduced into this document.
The situation is as follows: Those who had been promised for 46 years
will announce their engagement on October 3. The EU part does all it
can to ensure that the engagement will not end up with a marriage. It
will sit at the table of engagement, just because it promised once,
but it prepares many pretexts in order to toss the ring away just after
the engagement. Turkey, too, is not happy as it sits at the table,
she is convinced that the EU is unwillingly sitting at the table. In
this case, almost everybody foresees that the negotiations will fail
to continue even if they do start on October 3 and that this will halt,
anyway, in 2006 when the additional protocol is revised.
The EU made the negotiations “unsustainable” with the declaration of
Cyprus, and allowed the UN ground for a possible solution to erode
and most importantly confirmed that it now sees the issue from a Greek
Cypriot view. From now on, in the Cyprus issue the EU cannot go beyond
the parameters cited in the declaration. The Greek Cypriots will get
what they want unless the political atmosphere in Europe goes through
a radical change-which is impossible in the short term.
The next crisis pending between the EU and Turkey is the additional
protocol waiting to be approved in the Assembly. As the screening
process will start on October 3, negotiations will most probably
start at the end of the term presidency of the UK, namely in December.
And in the worst case scenario, the start of negotiations will take
place following the scanning process and this will happen in the
term presidency of Austria. There is no need to offer any detailed
explanation of how Austria, which has the hysteria that the Turks
besieged Vienna for the third time, will approach the negotiations.
As the Greek Cypriots will ask the additional protocol to be approved
and implemented immediately after October 3, Turkey will face a
serious dilemma before it can even start the real negotiations.
As the opponents in Europe have plenty of supporters in Turkey,
sabotaging the negotiations will become easier. The guardians of the
established system whose entire comfort will be overwhelmed with the
start of negotiations will clearly show their European allies that
“Turkey has not changed” with a few provocations just as happened
at the Armenian conference. And in the words of Fuat Pasha that are
even more relevant today, “They from the outside, we from the inside,
together” will obstruct the start of negotiations! Come on guys!