TURKEY AND EU IN TRADE ROW OVER BORON
By John C. K. Daly

Eurasia Daily Monitor
Nov 13 2008
DC

In Turkey’s convoluted "long march" toward European Union membership,
Ankara has exhibited immense patience during the accession process,
which began 21 years ago, when on April 14, 1987, Turkey applied to
join the EU, having been an associate member of the European Union
and its predecessors since 1963. Now an EU decision on a Turkish
mineralogical export has threatened to roil the economic waters
still further.

The mineral in question is boron, of which Turkey has an estimated
72 percent of the world’s estimated reserves of 3 to 4 billion tons
(Anadolu Ajansi, November 9). While boron and its allotropes and
compounds, from boric acid to sodium tetraborate, have extensive
industrial uses, including boron fibers used to reinforce metallic
elements in military aircraft fuselages, their primary use, an
estimated 95 percent, is in the production of glass, ceramics,
cosmetics, and detergents.

Annual global consumption, including in Turkey, is 4 million tons. In
2008 Turkey expects boron exports to bring in $500 to $600 million,
of which $130 to $140 million will be exported to the EU (Anadolu
Ajansi, November 9).

The EU legislation that has Ankara so concerned had its genesis in
2002, when the Swedish government decided to classify borates as toxic
to the human reproductive system. In February 2007 the EU Working
Group on the Classification and Labeling of Dangerous Substances
subsequently recommended that the EU Commission adopt a similar
definition under the terms of the working group’s Directive 67/548/EEC
Category 3. The EU Commission gave its assent to the recommendation
in June, and on September 15 the Official Journal of the European
Union published the decision, with the condition that it would
take effect 20 days after publication (EBA memo on the regulatory
framework for borates, European Borates Association, June 27,
ssued%20at%20REACH%20Workshop.pdf;
Zaman, November 7).

Since last year Turkey has voiced its objections several times to
the World Trade Organization (WTO) and has offered to cooperate
with the EU to resolve the issue, but nothing concrete has been
accomplished. During a technical meeting in February with the EU,
Turkey stated that it intended to raise the issue with the WTO’s
Dispute Settlement Body if the classification decision were approved.

Turkish bureaucrats worry that if the EU decision becomes fully
implemented, Turkey’s boron exports to the EU could shrink by 50
percent or more, meaning an annual loss of at least $65 million. Even
more worrisome, Ankara believes that the decision will also have
"secondary and psychological impacts" once other nations consider
implementing the EU directive in their own national legislation. The
directive stipulates that boron and its derivatives, containing more
than 5.5 percent of boron, will be forced to carry a warning label
and certain symbols such as a skull indicating the toxicity of the
package’s contents (Hurriyet, November 7).

The decision comes as a blow to Turkey’s mining industry, which
dreamed of becoming a global boron hub, seeing a rapidly expanding
global market. The general manager of NNT Nano Teknoloji A.S.,
Mehmet Can Arvas, stated that boron could play an important role
in reducing vehicular pollutants, saying, "Products manufactured
using boron minerals decrease the amount of exhaust released by
motor vehicles by 15 percent." He added optimistically, "If our
company’s boron products are used in vehicles all over the world,
the hole in the ozone layer will narrow in 20 years" (Anadolu Ajansi,
May 26). According to Arvas, boron could also play an important role
in the world’s move away from fossil fuels toward greener energy,
with boron as an integral component in hydrogen-fuelled motor vehicles.

Turkey has received support for its position from other boron exporting
countries, including the United States, Malaysia, Australia, Argentina,
Chile, Japan, and China, which have also contacted the relevant
EU bodies voicing their concerns and asking that the boron issue
be reconsidered. In April Turkish Minister of State Kursad Tuzmen
expressed his concern about the impending EU legislation during
discussions with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and U.S. trade
representative Susan Schwab during a meeting of the American-Turkish
Council in Washington D.C. He told them, "The EU wants to bring a
definition that will restrict boron trade. Turkey will defend its
rights on the matter within the framework of the rules of the World
Trade Organization" (Anadolu Ajansi, April 20).

Boron is regarded in Turkey as more than a useful element, even
having strategic overtones; last year Ali Kulebi president of the
Ankara-based Ulusal Guvenlik Stratejileri Arastirma Merkezi (National
Security Strategies Research Center [TUSAM]) said, "21st century wars
will also be for elements like boron, neptunium and uranium, which
economic resources and modern technology will be in need of only when
oil reserves are completely gone…" (Hurriyet, May 10, 2007).

Perceptions about boron’s strategic value have even infiltrated
into popular culture. In 2004 a future military conflict between the
United States and Turkey over the country’s boron resources formed the
basis of the wildly popular (and anti-American) novel, Metal Firtina
("Metal Storm"), in which the U.S. military launched Operation Sevres,
named after the 1921 Treaty of Sevres, to partition Turkey between
Greece and Armenia while encouraging the proclamation of a Kurdish
state. The Turks prevail in the end with the help of the Russians and
Europeans. While such fantasies rank up there with the more lurid James
Bond films, the popularity of the novel should have given Washington
officials pause.

If the EU legislation is not rescinded, it will not mean the end of the
Turkish boron industry. According to Eti Maden Enterprises director
general Orhan Yilmaz, 63 nations worldwide purchase Turkish boron,
including the United States, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Britain,
Canada, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Italy, Russia,
and Saudi Arabia (Anadolu Ajansi, November 9). It will, however,
leave bruised feelings in Turkey, adding to the belief that the EU
always treats Turkey by different, harsher standards.

As Turkey and the United States are the world’s largest producers of
boron, Washington could engender gratitude in Turkey while protecting
its own interests by dropping discreet hints into the "Eurocrats’"
ears in Brussels that the new legislation might merit further review,
being one of those rare occasions when the U.S. using its influence
with the EU could also further its image in the Middle East by placing
a much-needed band-aid on its bruised relations with its old ally.