TURKEY’S EU BID FADES WITH LITTLE DRAMA
Paul Taylor

Reuters Blogs (blog)
09:16 October 15th, 2009

Turkey’s bid to join the European Union is fading away with
surprisingly little drama because investors no longer see the prospect
of accession as an essential policy anchor.

But EU leaders should keep Ankara’s entry negotiations alive on the
back burner rather than trying to engage Ankara on alternatives to
membership, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy would like to do.

In a version of the old Soviet workers’ joke, "they pretend to
pay us and we pretend to work," the buzz on Turkey in the European
Commission’s enlargement department is, "they pretend they’re reforming
and we pretend we want them".

The EU’s biggest candidate began accession talks on the same day as
Croatia in 2005. At that time, optimists on both sides reckoned the
negotiations might be concluded within a decade.

But while Zagreb was told by Brussels on Wednesday that it can expect
to wrap up its entry talks next year, Ankara has not even advanced
one-quarter of the way. The Turks got another C-minus "must try harder"
annual progress report.

The unresolved Cyprus conflict has shackled their progress,
prompting the EU to freeze eight of the 36 policy chapters in the
negotiations. The election of Sarkozy, who is openly hostile to
Turkish membership, forced the EU to take another five policy areas
off the table.

The changed political mood in France and Germany, the EU’s two central
powers, has dimmed prospects of the overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 71
million ever joining the 27-nation bloc. Any further accession treaty
after Croatia’s will be subject to a referendum in France, where public
opinion is strongly against Turkish accession, unless a three-fifths
majority of both houses of parliament improbably decides otherwise.

Without the magnet of membership, the EU’s ability to spur political
and economic reform in Turkey is ever weaker. Some in Brussels fault
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for faili ell if most Turks rightly
surmise that they have no prospect of EU entry.

Five years ago, Turkey’s accession process was seen, along with its
International Monetary Fund standby loan programme, as a guarantee
of monetary, fiscal and economic stability, drawing huge inflows of
foreign direct investment and portfolio funds.

Yet the absence of an IMF programme and virtual deadlock in the
EU talks no longer spook the markets. Financial stability and
the rule of law, at least for foreign investors, have become more
self-sustaining. Turkey is set to exit the global financial crisis
in better shape than most other emerging markets. The fact that it
is still talking to the European Commission about adopting EU norms
is reassuring for investors.

The government is supporting negotiations for a solution on Cyprus,
even though it still refuses to open its ports and airports to Greek
Cypriot traffic. It has made a historic opening to Armenia (picture
shows the Armenian and Turkish presidents with UEFA president Michel
Platini at a soccer match) and now espouses a political and economic
solution, rather than a purely military one, for the Kurdish southeast
of the country. It has also gradually exerted more civilian control
over the military, despite frequent tensions.

Turkey has also built stronger ties with other neighbours — Russia,
Iran, Iraq and Syria — while maintaining good relations with Israel
and the United States.

The Turks may one day decide on their own that they don’t need EU
membership. The accession negotiations have helped them modernise
their economy and governance, But they have plenty of other strategic
options.