Gulf Times, Qatar

Turkey, EU on collision course

Published: Friday, 21 September, 2007, 01:37 AM Doha Time

ANKARA: Turkey’s ruling AK Party, boosted by a big
election win in July, has vowed to speed up plans to
join the European Union, but its reluctance to push
key reforms may put it on a collision course with
Brussels.
The EU says Turkey must tackle article 301 of its
penal code that makes it a crime to insult Turkish
national identity and state institutions. The article
has been used to prosecute writers and scholars,
including Nobel Laureate Orhan Pamuk.
But Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan’s government has
instead made clear its top priority is to overhaul
Turkey’s military-inspired constitution, even if this
means a negative annual progress report from the
European Commission in November.
`We are not making our reforms to please Europeans and
we will continue to do what is right for Turkey to
bring more democracy, prosperity and better living
standards,’ AK Party deputy leader Egemen Bagis said.
Another senior AK Party official was more explicit.
`301 will not be amended now, the priority is drafting
and enacting a new constitution. Then we can address
the issues of the penal code that don’t comply with
the new constitution, such as 301,’ the official said,
on condition of anonymity.
This unilateral approach worries Brussels and Turkish
pro-EU analysts and human rights campaigners, who say
it will strengthen opponents of Ankara’s EU bid such
as French President Nicolas Sarkozy and undermine
Turkey’s friends in the bloc.
Jean-Christophe Filori, head of the Turkey desk in the
European Commission’s enlargement section, said he was
concerned that constitutional reform, though welcome,
was becoming a substitute for progress in other
pressing areas.
`A constitution takes a long time. The Turkish penal
code and the (religious) foundations law can be
addressed today. The constitutional process shouldn’t
become the receptacle for all the reforms needed
today,’ Filori told a gathering at the European
Parliament last week.
Turkey’s parliament, in recess until October 1, could
still approve the foundations law before November, but
in its current form it falls well short of EU demands
concerning restoration of property to the country’s
minority Christian community.
Among other demands, Brussels wants Turkey to open its
ports to traffic from Cyprus, a country Ankara does
not recognise. It also wants Ankara to open its border
with Armenia and to reopen a seminary near Istanbul
seen as vital to the long-term survival of Turkey’s
tiny Greek Orthodox Christian community.
But analysts expect no movement on these sensitive
issues, just slow progress on more technical aspects
of the EU talks.
`The intentions are good, but we are seeing no
action,’ said Cengiz Aktar, an EU expert at Istanbul’s
Bahcesehir University.
`A group of decision makers in the government is more
than happy with the fact that EU negotiations started
(in 2005) but they think just keeping the process
alive is sufficient to keep foreign capital flowing in
… This is pure brinkmanship.’
Turkey’s economy is booming but remains vulnerable
because of its heavy debt load. Turkey will lose some
of its lustre if investors sense the EU process is in
trouble, analysts say.
Turkey and its defenders say it has plenty of time to
meet EU standards because it is not seen joining for
many years.
Orhan Kemal Cengiz, head of the Human Rights Agenda
Association, said government plans to change the
constitution, though worthy, would sap the energy it
is able to devote to tackling continued rights abuses
such as torture.
The constitutional discussions have already ignited a
row between the Islamist-rooted AK Party (AKP) and
Turkey’s powerful secular elite over whether to lift a
ban on the Muslim headscarf in universities.
Secularists suspect the government of trying to erode
the separation of state and religion, a claim it
denies.
Cengiz said the AK Party’s decision to insist on
Abdullah Gul, an ex-Islamist, becoming president would
also hurt reforms.
`Electing Gul was a big mistake because the AKP will
spend most of its energy fighting the secular state
bureaucracy. The AKP has been the most powerful
reformist government in Turkey because of its
exclusion (by the secular elite). They are now trying
to occupy rather than to change the system,’ he said.
The AK Party-dominated parliament elected Gul head of
state in August over the protests of powerful army
generals.
Underlying the AK Party’s cooler stance on the EU is a
growing belief that the bloc will never admit Muslim
Turkey.
The leaders of France and Germany say Turkey has no
place in the EU. Brussels has also failed to lift
trade restrictions against Turkish Cypriots, while the
internationally recognised Greek Cypriot government
threatens to block Turkey’s EU bid.
`The EU could play a very positive role just by saying
`these are our standards, if you meet them Turkey can
join’. Instead we have endless debates about whether
Turkey is European at all,’ said Cengiz. – Reuters