ANALYSIS: TURKEY’S DEMOCRATIC REFORMS GET POOR GRADES
By Stefan Nicola – UPI Germany Correspondent
World Peace Herald, DC
Nov 2 2006
BERLIN — A new European Union report is set to give Turkey low grades
on its democratic reforms and further delay the country’s EU accession,
a process already under scrutiny by most of Europe.
An unnamed EU official told the Financial Times Germany newspaper
he was surprised that Turkey was so significantly behind in its
democratization process.
"We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during
the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in
October last year," the official said. "If Turkey had been moving
more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn’t
any torture, things would be a lot more promising."
The official report, which the newspaper said it has seen, will be
presented next week. It said "prosecutions and convictions for the
expression of non-violent opinion … are a cause for serious concern,"
although on the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
said he has no plans to change the penal code for such cases, the
newspaper reported.
Such bad grades for Turkey are by no means a surprise, experts say.
"Since the beginning of the accession negotiations, Turkey and the EU
have constantly distanced themselves from each other," Heinz Kramer,
Turkey expert at the German Institute for International and Security
Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, told United Press International.
"That’s also because the accession process within the EU has not much
or only half-hearted backing."
Public support for Turkey’s EU membership is at an all time low,
with less than one in three Europeans supporting it.
"Large parts of the population and — mostly conservative — political
elites feel that Turkey does not belong to Europe," Kramer said.
A country with unsolved regional conflicts and roughly 70 million
citizens, nearly all of them Muslims, Turkey is seen by many European
governments as a burden, rather than an asset to the EU.
France, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Slovakia are among
the most outspoken opponents, with Paris speaking loudest. In
what observers say was a bid to bank on anti-Turkey sentiments,
France earlier this month adopted 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.
The Cyprus problem
Another unresolved issue involves the Republic of Cyprus.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said that if Turkey wants
to be accepted into the EU, Ankara would have to open its ports to
Cypriots and recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member.
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.
Merkel has been critical of Turkey’s EU accession and favors the
model of a "privileged partnership" instead, although her coalition
government officially endorses the accession process.
Finland, which currently holds the rotating the EU presidency, has
been beefing up efforts to prevent a possible escalation of the Cyprus
crisis, wanted by "neither the EU nor Turkey," Kramer said.
Within the EU, the supporters of a Turkey membership, including Spain
and Britain, argue Turkey could serve as a bridge to the Islamic world,
and fuel democratization efforts in the region. Most EU governments,
however, feel the enlargement process, with Croatia becoming a
member soon, has reached its limits, and pointing to Turkey’s reform
shortcomings is an easy way out of a quick accession.
But the EU, with its half-hearted support of the Turkish accession
process, is also to blame for the lack of reforms in Turkey, Kramer
said.
"In Ankara, politicians think: ‘Why should we make all these efforts
if in the end, nothing comes out of it,’" he told UPI. "From how it
looks now, it may only be a question of time until the whole process
becomes deadlocked."