The EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle: "Privileged Partnership Offers Turkey
neither Privilege nor Partnership",
Hugh Pope in Today’s Zaman
back to "Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle"
23June 2009
Right-wingers won big in the European elections this month, and one of
their rallying cries has been that the EU should renege on its promise
of an eventual place for Turkey in the European Union. In its place,
they are offering a vision of "privileged partnership". Yet leading
proponents in France, Germany and elsewhere have failed to spell out
what this policy might be, even though talk of a substitute
arrangement for Turkey puts European credibility, intellectual honesty
and long-term interests at stake.

Among the first to propose "privileged partnership" was German
Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union in 2004, trying
to find ways to fit German public concerns to Turkish
expectations. But little perceptible intellectual effort has gone into
developing the concept, even though French President Nicolas Sarkozy,
outgoing European Parliament President Hans-Gert Poettering and other
European conservatives have joined the bandwagon since then. And at
the same time as their leaders are proposing the idea, the German and
French governments have published no documents saying how this
"privileged partnership" can substitute for Turkey’s existing EU
Associate Membership. Small wonder that German Foreign Minister
Frank-Walter Steinmeier told journalists last week: "I don’t know what
privileged partnership means."

Indeed, the only theoretical study apparently available dates back to
2004. By Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, currently Germany’s minister of
the economy, the 33-page document is in many ways the proof of what
Euro-sceptical Turks used to pun about Europe’s old Common Market:
"They keep the partnership in common for themselves. And they keep us
as the market." Or, in plain English, having one’s cake and eating it
too.

Zu Guttenberg’s plan would extend the existing EU-Turkey customs union
into areas advantag
re and services — while allowing Turkey into most European
institutions as an observer only. There would be consultative
mechanisms, but they closely resemble those that Turkey already has in
the Association Council. Turkey would integrated in European defence,
security and foreign policy mechanisms, with eventual full membership
in the relevant decision-making bodies. This is an advance on the
current situation, but it is not particularly generous, considering
that Turkey has already helped defend Europe for 57 years as a full
and continuing member of NATO. However, zu Guttenberg stipulates that
before this can happen, the EU has to take binding decisions on its
Middle East policy and the "strategic meaning of Turkey for the
EU". He rules out monetary union, stipulates that the EU ends at the
border of Turkey and ignores the
historical and emotional sides of the arguments for Turkey in Europe.

Other published proposals for "privileged partnership" have been even
more broad-brush. The European People’s Party members of the European
Parliament in 2005 offered an eight-point plan suggesting integration
of Turkey into EU trade policy, full judicial cooperation, control of
immigration, cooperation in maritime security, development aid, joint
defence and foreign policies, work on a peaceful solution to the
Cyprus problem and cultural/educational projects. Once again, EU
concerns came first while Turkey’s sovereign sensitivities were ridden
over roughshod, with calls for its recognition of an Armenian
genocide, the ceding of some of its control of the Bosphorus waterway
and allowing Europeans a share in controlling its external borders.

In short, "privileged partnership" offers no obvious new privileges to
Turkey, even though it is a member of almost all pan-European
organizations from the Council of Europe to soccer leagues, and is in
many ways closer to the EU than any other non-member. Nor does it
offer real new partnership, since the main goal appears to be either
to control Turkey or to exclude it from the decision-making that would
make it a true partner. Already, the EU happily concludes free trade
deals with third parties that supposedly urge them to open their
markets to Turkey. But these third countries are under no obligation
and are reluctant to do so.
There is a downside to "privileged partnership" as well. European
states have formally contracted with Turkey that it is in a process
leading to full accession to the Union, if and when it satisfies all
the criteria. Reversing this obligation for transparent reasons of
domestic politics sends a message that Europe cannot be trusted. There
is an element of dishonesty, too. Politicians and commentators present
the accession talks as if a poorer, over-populated Turkey was about to
join tomorrow. In fact, the process will take a decade or even two, by
which time the relative positi
agnant Europe will doubtless be much changed. Fears of a flood of
Turkish migrants are exaggerated – free movement of Turkish labour
will likely not be allowed for many further years, if ever. Even then,
Turkey’s accession can ultimately be vetoed by any government.

Turkey’s negotiations to accede to the European Union are good for
Turks and good for Europeans, as long-standing strategic allies and
economic partners (see our August 2007 report Turkey and Europe: the
Way Ahead). On top of that, sweeping Turkish reforms from 2000-2005
showed that sincere cooperation towards EU accession helps in every
area that Europe and Turkey want matters to improve: on human rights,
on the Kurdish question, solving Cyprus, on limiting the role of
Turkey’s military and on empowering Turkey to be a force for stability
in the troubled areas to its east. Not only that, but Turkey’s economy
grew 7 per cent between 2002-2007, and foreign investment has rocketed
up more than tenfold, most of it from Europe.

As Turkey’s failure to sustain reforms since 2005 shows, it needs the
goal of full EU membership as a vital locomotive in its transformation
process. Updating laws, improving food hygiene standards and lowering
emissions may be important, but they are disruptive and expensive, and
any government needs to provide its population with motivation for
difficult change. The goal of accession is still supported by half of
all Turks, hoping that it will accelerate their country’s progress
towards greater prosperity, less corruption and a steady anchor for a
two-century-old process of modernisation and Europeanisation. Of
course, not all the trouble in the EU-Turkey relationship is the EU’s
fault. Turkey should be doing much more to adopt EU laws and norms
more quickly, and its leaders should do far more to remind Turkish
people how much of their current prosperity and regional prestige is
due to the EU convergence process. But since the Turkish republic was
founded in 1923, Turkey has founded itself on European models, Europe
is by far take the lead in shaping its neighbourhood in its own image.

In the circumstances, talk of "privileged partnership" thus looks more
and more like a scapegoat for popular European fears about jobs,
immigration and Islam. Blaming the EU-Turkey accession process does
not just build up problems for the EU-Turkey relationship — with all
the lost opportunities that this implies for future cooperation
between the EU and NATO, European energy security and cooperation with
the Muslim world — but it also delays an honest appraisal of the true
causes of these fears in European states themselves.
Hugh Popeis the project director of the International Crisis
Group-Turkey/Cyprus.

Today’s Zaman
back to "Solving the EU-Turkey-Cyprus Triangle"