ANALYSIS: GERMAN GOVT SPLIT OVER TURKEY
By Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent
United Press International
Nov 9 2006
BERLIN, Nov. 9 (UPI) — The European Union’s growing dispute with
Turkey is sure to dominate the German EU presidency, which starts on
Jan. 1, 2007, but the two top politicians in Berlin are at odds over
whether to push for Turkey’s EU accession or not.
Wednesday’s "progress report" by the European Commission in unusually
harsh words gave Ankara an ultimatum to solve the conflict with Cyprus
within the next month or face suspension of the talks to join the
25-member club.
The report, which also asserted that Turkey had slowed down its
democratic reform process, is a serious setback to the accession
talks that started in October 2005.
While the current Finnish presidency has constantly stepped up
its efforts to find a compromise between Turkey and the Republic
of Cyprus, an EU member, the issue will likely be passed on to the
German government, which will take over the EU’s rotating six-month
presidency at the start of the year.
Germany, in a way, mirrors the European attitude towards Turkey:
It is deeply divided, with a majority against Turkish accession.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel, of the center-right Christian
Democratic Union, recently said that if Turkey wants to be accepted
into the EU, Ankara would have to open its airports and harbors to
Cypriots and recognize the Republic of Cyprus.
Cyprus, a popular Mediterranean tourist destination, has been
divided into a Republic of Cyprus — the Greek Cypriot south — and
a Turkish-occupied north since a 1974 Turkish invasion. Ankara wants
the EU to recognize the Turkish state in the North before it agrees
to any compromise, it has said on repeated occasions.
In the wake of the report, Ronald Pofalla, the general secretary of
Merkel’s CDU party, said if Turkey wouldn’t solve the Cyprus issue,
then this "must lead to consequences for the accession process."
Merkel has been critical of Turkey’s EU accession and favors the
model of a "privileged partnership" instead — as many conservatives
in Europe do, she feels that Turkey, a country with unsolved regional
conflicts and roughly 70 million citizens, nearly all of them Muslims,
is a burden, rather than an asset to the EU.
Germany’s Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, however, strongly
favors Turkish EU membership because the country could serve as a
bridge to the Islamic world, and fuel democratization efforts in
the region.
Breaking off talks with Turkey would thus be a bad and "hasty"
decision, Steinmeier said earlier this week at a conference of European
Socialists in Berlin. He added that he was optimistic that a compromise
with Ankara could be found before Jan. 1.
"I am in favor of fair negotiations with Turkey. I know and I maintain
that the Ankara Protocol will be ratified," he said.
While Germany’s grand coalition government has agreed to officially
endorse the accession process, the conflicting statements of Merkel
and Steinmeier make experts wonder how Berlin will really conduct
its Turkey policy once it is in the driver’s seat of the EU.
"Berlin right now reminds me of a two-headed creature, each head
wanting to go off in the opposite direction," John Hulsman, Europe
expert at the German Council on Foreign Relations, told United
Press International in a telephone interview. "To me, a privileged
partnership sounds like ‘we care about you but we don’t want you in
the club.’"
Observers say it is no wonder Ankara is less energetic in its reform
process given the EU’s cautious to repulsatory stance whether to
invite Turkey in.
In what observers say was a bid to bank on anti-Turkey sentiments,
France recently angered Ankara by adopting a bill that makes it a crime
to deny that an Armenian genocide occurred in Turkey during World War
I, a move that was criticized in most of Europe. France is home to
roughly 500,000 people whose families came from Armenia, many of them
descendants of families that experienced the 1915-1923 violence that
killed some 1.5 million people. Turkey denies that genocide took place.
In Turkey, many people feel the EU treats them unfairly; in Western
Europe, the sentiment on the street is that Turkey doesn’t really
share the club’s values, a view that could eventually spell disaster
for Europe’s security policy if Turkey stays away from the EU,
Hulsman said.
"Nobody wants Turkey going into the arms of Syria and Iran," he
told UPI.