EU REFORMS & TURKEY
By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi
Dawn.com
Oct 20 2009
Pakistan
Only the Czech Republic now stands between the European Union and a
president for the 27-nation grouping. Ratified by Ireland, the Lisbon
Treaty provides for a foreign minister and a long-term president as
against the rotating six-month job at present.
Even Czech Prime Minister Jan Fischer is willing to go along, the sole
opposition to the treaty coming from President Vaclav Klaus. Sooner or
later, Prague will ratify the treaty, paving the way for a president
of the European Council and a foreign minister. The Lisbon Treaty also
has a social charter, about which even Britain and Poland have some
reservations. For Turkey, all this should provide food for thought.
Having a foreign minister or president at Brussels doesn’t mean that
all European states are ready to agree on common foreign and defence
policies. With Ireland in the west and Cyprus almost off the coast
of Syria, it is impossible for the EU’s 27 states to have a common
orientation in foreign and military affairs — basic principles of
geopolitics scoff at such an idea.
The split between Britain (and America) on one side and France and
Germany on the other over the Iraq war in 2003 clearly shows that no
European state is ready to subordinate its national interests to the
perceived common good of Europe. Nevertheless, in spite of formidable
obstacles, the EU states have reason to think in terms of a higher
degree of alignment in matters of foreign policy because of the rude
shocks they received during the Bosnian and Kosovo crises.
Both were European conflicts, but because of Europe’s military
weakness, it was America which called the shots and prevailed.
Besides, to the consternation of Paris and Berlin, Britain’s presence
in the EU has meant a ceaseless projection of American policy on
European affairs. This has served to give to the EU’s foreign policy
deliberations an overdose of Anglo-Saxon advice. Nevertheless, the
trend towards greater coordination in defence and foreign policy is
unmistakable, and Turkey cannot ignore it.
Should it ever become a full EU member, Turkey will obviously have
its own foreign policy compulsions which may not necessarily tie up
with those of Brussels. On the Arab-Israeli conflict, notwithstanding
differences in shades, all EU governments share Israel’s concept of
its security and are extremely reticent about Israeli war crimes and
crimes against humanity in the occupied territories.
That the Turks feel strongly about the plight of the Palestinian
people became visible, literally, last January at Davos when Prime
Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stormed out of the conference hall after
an angry exchange with Israeli President Shimon Peres. Earlier this
month, Ankara snubbed Tel Aviv by excluding it from an air exercise,
prompting America and Italy to pull out.
For reasons of geography and history, Turkey enjoys a unique position.
While it cannot reverse its European orientation begun by Kemal
Ataturk 85 years ago, it cannot at the same time repudiate its past
and be indifferent to its cultural affinities with Middle Eastern
countries. Turkey has been an associate-member of the European economic
grouping since 1963 when today’s EU was the European Common Market.
Minus four years, half a century has passed, and Turkey is still
knocking on Europe’s door for entry. In the meantime, Brussels has
opened the floodgates of membership, accepting former Soviet bloc
adversaries, states formerly part of Yugoslavia and those on Europe’s
periphery, like Greek Cyprus and Malta.
Entry talks with Turkey began in 2005, but still there is no sign
that Brussels will ever be satisfied that Ankara has undertaken all
the legal and administrative reforms necessary to conform to the
Copenhagen criteria. In fact, as cynics say, Ankara has rewritten
one-third of its constitution to try to satisfy Europe but has failed.
This humiliation has angered a proud people like the Turks, and
popular support for membership has gone down from 70 to 42 per cent.
The strongest opposition to Turkey’s membership comes from Germany and
France, both of which have large immigrant populations, mostly Muslim.
Germany has three million people of Turkish descent, and France
has five million migrants, mostly from North Africa and Francophone
countries.
>From the German and French points of view, a Turkish membership
will mean a new and continuous wave of Turkish migrants to Europe’s
prosperous countries, especially Germany. This could significantly
alter Germany’s demographic character. No wonder, Chancellor Angela
Merkel calls for a ‘privileged partnership’ for Turkey, and President
Nicolas Sarkozy supports her.
At the same time, Europeans realise that keeping Turkey — the Muslim
world’s most liberal and western-oriented country — out will not be
in the interest of the European Union which will come to be regarded as
a Christian club. Besides, Turkey has of late acquired new importance.
Even though there is a relative fall in Turkey’s importance as a key
Nato nation because of the end of the Cold War, the country is now
playing a greater regional role. Its economy has improved and the
energy deals it has signed with Iran, Iraq and Qatar, especially that
relating to the Nabucco pipeline, will help Europe in its quest for
diversifying its energy sources.
Turkey has also signed a gas agreement with Azerbaijan’s autonomous
republic Nakhchivan, and the energy deal with Moscow has enabled the
Putin government to bypass Ukraine. Meanwhile, Ankara has improved
its relations with its hard-line Arab neighbour to the south, Syria,
is normalising relations with Armenia, is supporting Cyprus unity
talks and is forging closer economic ties with Iran. Many Europeans
feel all this goes to Europe’s advantage.
Still a full EU membership is likely to elude Ankara. What it should
go for is the privileged partnership, though unfortunately neither
Merkel nor Sarkozy has bothered to explain what it actually means.
Common sense suggests that it should be an improvement on the existing
associate membership. The best bet for the Erdogan government should
be to get political and economic space for Turkey in the Merkel idea
and seek maximum economic benefits.
In such a privileged relationship, Ankara would not necessarily be
called upon to abandon its known position on Cyprus or get endless
rebukes from Brussels for failure to comply with the Copenhagen
criterion. More important, such a relationship will remove the irritant
that at present characterises Ankara’s relationship with Brussels.
PS: David Cameron and his Conservative colleagues can take heart from
the fact that Tony Blair, the man who inflicted three consecutive
defeats on the Tories, is now unlikely to be the first EU president.