The International Herald Tribune, France
August 24, 2007 Friday
An EU muddle with global ramifications;
Turkey and Europe
by Kirsty Hughes – The New York Times Media Group
As Turkey emerges from its current political crisis, democratically
strengthened and most likely with a dynamic new president in Abdullah
Gul, one rapid consequence will be to put the European Union’s
foreign policy on the spot. Will the Union move rapidly to back
Turkey’s democratic modernization or will it continue to squander its
political capital in internal disputes over how to deal with Turkey?
It used to be said that EU enlargement was Europe’s most successful
foreign policy, giving it considerable political and economic
leverage over candidate countries in its region. But in the case of
Turkey, this risks being one of the Union’s clumsiest and potentially
most damaging foreign policy failures.
Almost as soon as the EU agreed to open membership negotiations with
Turkey just under three years ago, things turned sour on both sides.
The Union, bogged down in its own constitutional crisis, had a fit of
enlargement fatigue, with a gaggle of politicians – not least from
France and Austria – rushing to declare that Turkey could never join
the EU, no matter what the EU’s leaders had just unanimously agreed.
Turkey, whose rapid democratic, human rights and economic reforms
under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan had opened the door to
talks at the start of 2005, did not help to keep tempers cool. Soon
the European Union and Turkey were clashing over the divided island
of Cyprus, which had joined the EU in 2004 despite the absence of a
peace deal.
At the same time, Turkish political reforms slowed, violence returned
to Turkey’s Kurdish south-east, and dozens of writers and journalists
were prosecuted under the notorious Article 301 of the Turkish penal
code, which forbids ”insulting Turkishness,” culminating at the
start of this year in the murder of the Turkish-Armenian journalist
Hrant Dink.
By the time Turkey’s generals issued their ultimatum at the end of
April implicitly opposing Gul’s presidential candidacy, both EU and
Turkish nationalists were rubbing their hands in glee at Turkey’s
spoiling of its own chances of ever signing up to the EU club.
Except that Turkey hasn’t spoiled its chances. In July, the country’s
political parties took part in a robust democratic electoral
campaign. Turnout was high. And Turkish voters showed what they
thought of the military’s clumsy intervention in politics by
returning Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party with an increased
majority with 46 percent of the vote.
Even before putting his cabinet in place, Erdogan announced that his
advisers are working on a new civilian constitution to replace the
military-inspired one of 1981. This bold move suggests that a
confident, strong new government will now move fast on political
reforms. A replacement for Article 301 can be anticipated. So can a
less-hawkish stance on the south-east and any incursion into northern
Iraq, supposedly much favored by Turkey’s generals. Meanwhile, the
economy is booming.
Where then is the European Union? Unfortunately, there is little sign
of it gearing up its foreign policy to support democratic
modernization of this key geostrategic neighbor and NATO ally. The
new president on the block, Nicolas Sarkozy, made clear before and
after his election his visceral opposition to allowing Turkey into
Europe. And at the end of June, France blocked the opening of
membership talks with Turkey on the euro – notionally on
”technical” grounds but essentially because Sarkozy wants Turkey to
have nothing more than a ”privileged partnership” with Europe,
never to be a full member of the club. Other member states shuffled
their feet and talked nervously in response, but did nothing.
This autumn, the European Commission is expected to issue a fairly
critical annual progress report on Turkey, given Turkey’s reform
standstill in the last year. But it is for Europe’s leaders, not its
bureaucrats to rise to the moment, and respond to the new positive
political situation in Turkey. Europe’s position should be clear: If
Islam and democracy can go hand in hand, then so can Islam and Europe
through Turkey’s bid to join the club.
But the EU is in a mess – there is no chance of it making a robust
restatement of Europe’s commitment to Turkey’s membership. France is
now publicly opposed. And Germany’s leader, Angela Merkel, though
standing by her coalition policy of support for Turkey, is known to
prefer a privileged partnership.
Meanwhile, the Greek Cypriots, stalling on any deal to reunite their
island, search for any means to take their specific dispute with
Turkey into the wider EU negotiations.
Many in the Union, both for and against enlargement, will admit off
the record, that bringing a divided Cyprus into the EU was a mistake.
But error or not, eight areas of negotiations with Turkey are
currently suspended, due to Turkey’s refusal to even allow Greek
Cypriot vessels into its ports. And EU membership has made the
chances of a Cypriot peace settlement much less likely, a serious
foreign policy failure both in itself and for Europe’s future
relations with Turkey.
Turkey does have some European supporters, not least the United
Kingdom. But Britain is increasingly seen as a semi-detached member
of the Union, having won a new raft of opt-outs from EU policies at
the June summit meeting. And while its new prime minister, Gordon
Brown, talks of an outward-looking EU, that means climate change and
globalization more than clever diplomacy on Turkey.
Spain has been positive. And Italy sees the foreign policy advantages
of bringing Turkey in, but its federalist prime minister, Romano
Prodi, is wary of anything that could weaken the drive towards a more
political Europe. Other member states, from Belgium to Slovakia, are
less than enthusiastic.
Greece has been an important supporter til now of Turkey’s membership
bid, but some Greek voices can be heard wondering what they get from
this policy and whether Sarkozy’s idea of a privileged partnership
might not be enough after all.
It’s an EU muddle, but one with global ramifications. The Union has a
choice. It can restate its high-level foreign policy commitment to
the membership talks with Turkey, backed by all its leaders. Or it
can continue its loud internal debate on whether its decision to open
talks with Turkey should be lived up to, while France, Cyprus and
others continue to undermine the talks, souring the atmosphere in
Turkey. The former looks unlikely. But if it is the latter, not only
will Europe be seen to have failed in its biggest foreign policy
challenge in the region, it will also carry little clout or
conviction anywhere else it intervenes.
*
Kirsty Hughes is a former senior fellow of the Center for European
Policy Studies in Brussels.