FINNS HOPE THEY HAVE AN ANSWER TO TURKS’ ACCESSION CRISIS
by: Jamie Smyth
The Irish Times
October 17, 2006 Tuesday
European Diary: Turkey’s 40-year mission to join the European Union
is in trouble again.
Barely a year after EU foreign ministers grudgingly gave the go-ahead
for accession talks to begin at a cantankerous meeting in Luxembourg,
diplomats are warning of a "train crash" in the negotiations that
could lead to their suspension.
The European Commission will play a key role in deciding whether the
talks need to be frozen when it publishes a report on November 8th
on Turkey’s progress since they began in October 2005.
The state of human rights, freedom of expression and the penal code
will be analysed in the report, which is expected to reprimand Ankara
for a slowdown in the pace of reform.
However, it is Turkey’s refusal to open its ports and airports to
Greek Cypriot traffic until the EU ends its economic embargo of
Turkish northern Cyprus that is the crunch issue that could lead to
a suspension of talks.
British ambassador to Turkey Peter Westmacott warned yesterday that
the EU would hold Turkey to account for failing to comply with the
Ankara protocol – a 2005 deal to extend Turkey’s customs union to
the 10 new member states, including (Greek) Cyprus.
"The negotiations, once stalled, would be very hard to restart," said
Mr Westmacott, whose government is one of the strongest advocates of
Turkey’s accession.
Cyprus has been divided since Turkey invaded the island’s north in
1974 following an abortive coup supported by Greece. The Turkish
Republic of Northern Cyprus is not recognised by any EU state and
relies primarily on support from Turkey. An economic embargo forces
all EU exports and air traffic to travel through Turkey and the entity
was excluded from EU membership when Cyprus joined the union in 2004.
Fuelled by resentment against Cyprus for rejecting a UN-sponsored
peace plan in 2004, Turkey is now insisting the EU lift the isolation
of northern Cyprus before it adheres to the Ankara protocol.
In retaliation, Greece and Cyprus are already using their EU vetoes
to block Turkey’s accession talks, which have resulted in just one
chapter of law – science and research – being completed in a year
of negotiation.
"I wouldn’t call it a veto; it is more a consideration We must go
slowly as we want Turkey to honours its commitments," said a Greek
diplomat yesterday, who added that both states would not allow any
new chapters to be opened ahead of November 8th.
This leaves Turkey’s accession talks in limbo, with a further 34
chapters of legislation to be amended to comply with the 90,000 pages
in the EU acquis communautaire.
With a potential crisis just a month away, the current EU president,
Finland, a strong supporter of enlargement, is preparing a plan to
prevent the complete derailment of the talks. The proposals involve
opening a small number of Turkish ports to Cypriot traffic. In return
Turkish Cypriot trade restrictions would be eased by opening a sea
port on the east of the island under EU supervision, say EU diplomats.
Another controversial proposal under consideration is getting the
Turkish military to hand over administration of the northern town
of Varosha to the UN. More than 40,000 Greek Cypriots fled the town
after the 1974 invasion. Since then Varosha has become a ghost town
and a symbol of the invasion and continuing division of Cyprus.
But at an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg yesterday the
Greek Cypriot delegation insisted that Nicosia would not accept any
plan that didn’t return the town to its former inhabitants.
The response of the Turkish Cypriot government has been cautious too.
Last week President Mehmet Ali Talat, on his first visit to Brussels,
said the Finnish plan included "dangerous elements". Mr Talat warned
that the plan made the issue of the lifting of the isolation of Turkish
Cypriots a bargaining chip. This was unfair, as the EU had already
agreed to lift the embargo in 2004 when the Turkish Cypriots voted
in favour of unification as part of a UN plan that Nicosia rejected,
he said.
Despite scepticism in Cyprus, enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn
warned yesterday that the Finnish proposals were now the "only game
in town" for Turkey, which he praised as "an anchor of stability"
and "bridge-builder" in an unstable Middle East.
Yet the fear expressed by pro-Turkish diplomats in the EU is that a
suspension of the accession talks over Cyprus could turn the country
away from Europe. With tensions already high in Turkey over French
lawmakers’ proposal to make denying the genocide of the Armenians a
crime, a negative signal from Brussels could hamper domestic reformers.
"Already you have seen a drastic drop in support for EU membership in
Turkey. It has fallen 20 per cent in just two years," says Katinka
Barysch, analyst with the think tank Centre for European Reform in
London. "At the start of the accession process Turkish people were
happy to be part of it; now there is a real risk of disillusionment."