WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY? THE FUTURE OF TURKEY AND EUROPE.
The National Review
Oct 14 2005
On October 3, Turkish and European Union officials will sit down in
Brussels to begin negotiating Turkey’s accession to the European
Union. The day marks a new chapter in Ankara’s decades-long quest
to join Europe. Turkey first applied for membership in the European
Economic Community in September 1959. It achieved association status
four years later. But the European Community rejected its application
for full membership in December 1989. In 1993, the European Union
member states agreed upon the Copenhagen criteria to define the
prerequisites for membership. Few thought Ankara would pass the bar.
But, to the surprise of many European politicians, their Turkish
counterparts pushed through unprecedented economic and structural
reform to meet the criteria. In August 2002, for example, the
Turkish parliament agreed to abolish the death penalty and permit
Kurdish-language broadcasts. In July 2003, the Turkish parliament
pushed through an additional reform package diluting the political
influence of the military. The August 2004 appointment of Mehmet Yigit
Alpogan to head the National Security Council cemented a fundamental
change in Turkish politics.
Empty Populism…
Still, some European politicians seek to prevent Turkish membership.
Many make populist arguments. Former French President Valery Giscard
d’Estaing, for example, said that including Turkey in the European
Union “would be the end of Europe.” For much the same reason,
European Union foreign ministers entered yesterday into emergency
caucus in Luxembourg to discuss last-minute Austrian objections to the
consideration of full-membership for Turkey. As one Dutch politician
hostile to Turkish membership said to me in May 2005, “The question
of whether Turkey belongs in Europe was settled in 1683 [when the
Hapsburgs repelled the Ottomans at Vienna].” Beneath the thin veneer of
the European-identity argument is a deep-seeded but seldom acknowledged
belief among the European elite that Muslims cannot be fully European.
Rather than confront the question of whether Turkey is European –
and what European identity actually means – many European politicians
have used side issues to undercut Turkey’s membership drive. On
December 15, 2004, for example, the European parliament passed
three amendments calling upon Turkey to acknowledge that the Ottoman
Empire had committed genocide against the Armenian people. The debate
over issues that predate Turkey’s establishment has become one of
original sin. While historians do not dispute the deaths of hundreds
of thousands of Armenians during World War I, the historical record
about the role of the Ottoman Empire’s Young Turks is far murkier
than many European politicians acknowledge.
Some European politicians and both European and American
nongovernmental organizations use human-rights concerns as a stick
with which to beat Turkey. Most often, they argue that Turkey relegates
its ethnic minorities to second-class status.
Actually, it is often the other way around. Kurdish citizens of Turkey
who accept the constitutional and the legal basis of the Turkish state
face little if any discrimination. Kurds have risen to the highest
levels of state. Ismet Inolu, Ataturk’s successor and president from
1938 to 1950, was Kurdish. Likewise, Turgat Ozal, president from 1989
to 1993, was part Kurdish. Hikmet Cetin, foreign minister between 1991
and 1994, was a Kurd. The same opportunities do not exist elsewhere
in the European Union. As Washington Institute analyst Soner Cagaptay
has pointed out, in European Union member Latvia, those who do not
pass Latvian language tests cannot vote and do not receive passports.
European sentiment toward Ankara’s treatment of its Kurdish minority
has been colored by many Europeans’ stance toward the Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK). European leftists too often assume that any group to
be legitimate if it claims to be a liberation movement. The PKK does
not represent Turkey’s Kurds, though. Kurds were disproportionately
victims of a PKK terrorist campaign responsible for 30,000 deaths. It
is hard for anyone in Turkey, Kurdish or not, to sympathize with a
group famous for lining up Kurdish elementary-school teachers and
executing them because they worked for the state.
The final populist issue with which some European politicians seek to
derail Turkish membership regards Cyprus. In 1974, Greek-army officers
staged a coup, ousting President Makarios in an attempt to unify Greece
and Cyprus. The Turkish army intervened, effectively dividing island
nation in order to protect its sizeable Turkish minority. Decades
of negotiations and peace talks followed. These culminated in a plan
brokered by U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to reunite the island
in a loose federation with minority rights enshrined. In an April
2004 referendum, Turkish Cypriots accepted the plan by a margin of
two-to-one; Greek Cypriots rejected it overwhelmingly. The European
Union’s subsequent decision to recognize the Greek Cypriot leadership
as representative of the island nation and to give the Greek Cypriot
side veto power over Turkish accession rewarded the intransigence
of Greek populists and set back the cause of peace. To demand that
Ankara offer further concession or abandon the Turkish minority would
undercut both peace and justice.
…Obstructs Key Issues Armenians, Kurdish nationalists, and Greek
Cypriots may feel strongly about Turkey. But to shift the goal posts
established in Copenhagen would undercut the European claim to stand
for the supremacy of rule.
The irony of the European populist stance is that for the sake of
crude, anti-Turkish bias, they ignore serious problems which, if
left unaddressed, might undercut not only the health and stability
of Turkey’s democracy, but also that of any future European Union of
which Turkey might be part.
The Justice and Development party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi, AKP)
rose to power in November 2002 on a wave of popular dissatisfaction
with economic malaise and corruption scandals within the establishment
parties. While Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has claimed credit
for leading the most recent drive toward Turkish membership in the
European Union, he has undercut the rule of law, separation of powers,
and transparency upon which Turkish democracy was built.
In 2000 and 2001, prior to the AKP’s accession, a currency and
banking crisis nearly caused the Turkish economy’s collapse. The
Turkish Government’s Banking Supervisory and Regulatory Board seized
22 private banks. Many made poor investments with inadequate capital.
Demirbank, for example, bought 90 percent of one issue of government
bonds, and went insolvent as the currency collapsed.
Others like Kent Bank and Pamukbank weathered the storm with minor
hiccups. Nevertheless, in order to prove its seriousness to the
International Monetary Fund, the Turkish government seized the banks.
Mustafa Suzer, chairman of Kent Bank, contested the seizure in Turkey’s
supreme court. He won three successive cases, in December 2003, April
2004, and February 2005. The court ordered the government to return
Suzer’s assets. But Erdogan refused to honor the supreme court’s
ruling. Not only was Suzer closely associated with rival politicians,
but the two had clashed when Erdogan, as mayor of Istanbul, sought
to revise the building permits of a controversial tower already under
construction. Rather than obey the court, Erdogan’s political animus
and vendetta carried the day. He transferred the seized assets to
an Erdogan political ally and retaliated against Suzer with a travel
ban. The case is not isolated.
Turkish concerns which refused to make donations to the AKP now find
themselves targets of criminal investigations or, as in the case of
some local branches of U.S. companies, multimillion-dollar tax levies.
As serious as Erdogan’s abuse of power, has been his attempts to
eviscerate the independence of the judiciary. In 2003, the AKP
proposed lowering the mandatory retirement age of public servants
from 65 to 61. In effect, this means that prior to the next election,
Erdogan can replace 4,000 of the existing 9,000 judges and public
prosecutors. President Ahmet Necdet Sezer vetoed the bill, but Erdogan,
who as mayor of Istanbul compared democracy to a streetcar – “You
ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off” –
directed his party to override the veto. The law (No. 4827) amounts to
an AKP autogolpe that will impact the Turkish state for years to come.
The retirement controversy is part of a larger pattern of the AKP’s
disdain for judicial checks and balances. In May 2005, frustrated
at the constitutional court’s willingness to veto unconstitutional
legislation, Parliamentary Speaker Bulent Arinc, an AKP member,
suggested that the party could use its parliamentary majority to
amend the constitution and abolish the court.
In a democratic system of checks and balances, an independent judiciary
is one check on abuse of power. An independent media is another. Here
too Erdogan’s administration has backpedaled. The Turkish prime
minister has sued a number of political cartoonists. In one case, he
filed a lawsuit against a prominent cartoonist who depicted Erdogan
as a cat entangled in a ball of yarn.
After I raised questions about the influx of Saudi and other “Green
Money” into Turkey, the prime minister’s chief adviser told a Turkish
newspaper that rather than answer any questions raised, he would sue
me. His statement was bluster. Too many Turkish journalists picked up
the story and demanded answers. While he could not and did not act –
Turkish reporters said that his threats were part of an increasing
trend of debate suppression, government opacity, and intimidation.
Turkish media outlets are particularly vulnerable to government
pressure. Many are owned by larger conglomerates. Journalists say
they must self-censor government criticism for fear that Erdogan
may retaliate against other television station and newspaper owners’
non-media companies.
Should Turkey Join the European Union?
Turkey has come a long way. Generations of Turkish politicians spanning
parties and philosophies have worked to tie Turkey to Europe. While
Germany and France seek exemptions from their own financial policy
commitments, Turkish politicians have pushed through much more
substantial structural reforms. The tendency of European politicians to
find any excuse to condemn Turkish policy, even while turning a blind
eye toward similar more egregious actions by European Union members,
reflects poorly on the principles for which Europe claims to stand.
Turkey should join the European Union. It is unfortunate, therefore,
to see the AKP increasingly take actions which undercut the
anti-corruption values upon which it campaigned. Abuse of power is
never acceptable. The rule of law must remain supreme. While Europe
should not treat Turkey unfairly, neither should the AKP. It would
be a historical tragedy if one party’s fumbles undercut the Turkish
dream. It is time for Turkey to move forward.
– Michael Rubin, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise
Institute is editor of the Middle East Quarterly.