SARKOZY AND EU’S DECREASING CREDIBILITY
View by Fatma YILMAZ (USAK)
Journal of Turkish Weekly, Turkey
Fatma Yilmaz, ISRO researcher ISRO Center for EU Studies
[email protected]
http://www. theparliament.com/NR/rdonlyres/8E858E78-AA5F-4C3B- 83CC-6E27F71992E8/0/parl_2july07_fullmag.pdf
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July 18 2007
Luis Filipe Marques Amado, Portuguese Foreign Minister, holding
the current term-presidency of the EU, has recently shared his and
Portugal’s insight on the EU’s external relations agenda. Giving an
interview to the Parliament Magazine, Mr. Amado has also mentioned
his views regarding the potential membership of Turkey in the EU. In
this sense, he emphasized the importance of Turkish accession to
the EU for the future of the Union, saying that "Turkish accession
is of a major importance to the future of the EU, namely due to its
strategic position and its role as a cornerstone in the relations
between the west and the Islamic world. This is a decisive moment,
when a political crisis could send Turkey away from Europe, perhaps
irreversibly. On the contrary, the positive attraction of the EU can
generate a virtuous cycle that will anchor it strongly in Europe".
Moreover, Mr. Amado indicated that in any case, Turkey’s accession to
the Union is a long term issue and there is a long way to go, during
which Turkey can only join the EU when it fulfils the established
criteria. He then added, at that time, it will be much easier for
the Europeans to support the Turkish accession. However, whereas the
Portuguese FM, on one hand, mentions the difficulty of the accession
period for Turkey, on the other hand he has made emphasize on the
fact that "We [the EU] have a commitment to negotiate with Turkey
and we should fulfill that commitment in good faith".[1]
When considered the French President Sarkozy’s statements about
Turkey’s EU prospect through which he emphasizes Turkey should not be
a member of the EU, statements made by the Portuguese FM make more
sense, simply because of the commitments given by the Union itself
since the earlier past. Let’s have a look at the way and criteria
bringing a state to a full membership and then decide who approaches
Turkey’s EU bid more understandable, Sarkozy or Portugal?
Up to the current process in the EU, the negotiation process is
naturally considered as a way of going to the full membership and
it is committed to several criteria both to be a candidate and the
advanced one, a member. These are the ones about the ‘Europeanness’ of
the applicant state, about the political and then economic situation
of the state at issue. Naturally, there are other points effective
in deciding whether a state is able to be a member or not, such as
the cultural and civilization ones. For the case of Turkey’s possible
membership, since its first application to the EU in 1959, the Union
has not rejected Turkey’s membership application just because it is
not a European state. It could, of course due to its legislation of
being a European country to apply the Union, but it did not. The EU
Commission never says, for instance when it rejected Turkey’s full
membership application in 1989, that they rejected its application
because of Turkey is not a European country. Contrary, the EU gave
the candidate status to Turkey in 1999 and then even declared Turkey
fulfilled all the criteria to start negotiations with the EU in
the December 2004 EU Summit. Following this, in October 2005, the
EU decided to start negotiations with Turkey in 2006 and currently
two sides have engaged with the negotiations, albeit some suspended
chapters due to the Cyprus problem.
Making reference to the conclusions of the EU Summits and the taken
decisions, there is actually no need to even discuss Turkey’s ability
to be an EU member. After the decisions taken and commitments made
by the Union, the only things to discuss have to be the technical
details for fulfilling a smooth negotiation and implementation
process. As the Portuguese FM Amado emphasized, the EU has a
commitment to negotiate with Turkey and the discussions about the
nature of the negotiations and the debate about the Europeannes of
Turkey hereafter would shade the expected good faith of the EU. What
Sarkozy’s long-standing attitude is exactly the one shading light on
the EU’s good faith. During the presidential elections in France,
he claimed that "if elected president, he would launch a debate on
Turkey’s EU membership, and he would be against such membership. The
reason is that Turkey is in Asia Minor. Those who want Turkey’s
membership are against a political Europe".[2] He is now the French
President and has still same stance against Turkey. He has even
recently gone further and called to create a Mediterranean Union,
in parallel with the EU, in which Turkey would be involved instead
of being a full-member. It is possible to give a reply to Sarkozy
via the statement of Portuguese FM once more: "(…) I believe these
reforms should be made under the EU structure and not under a new
structure. Mr. Sarkozy did not say this, but in my own personal and
cynical understanding of the matter I believe what he really meant was
the EU could develop a strategic partnership with the Mediterranean
area as it has already with Turkey". What the statement of the FM
Amado means that Turkey has already had a strategic partnership with
the EU and even a privileged one due to the Customs Union with the EU
as once German Chancellor Merkel offered. Thus, there is no need to
muddy the negotiation process with such hollow suggestions. This kind
of arguments would not help the EU to ease the process; in contrary,
Sarkozy’s arguments about the Europeannes of Turkey and rejection
its membership prospect can be considered as difficult to deal with
this hard process and also more importantly dangerous arguments. One
again as stated in Mr. Amado’s speech, it is dangerous for the future
of the EU.
First of all, it is not possible to conduct the argument on the
geographical base. It would be so unreasonable to claim a country, in
the middle of the European ones at least accepted as European by the
EU, being not a part of Europe. Once considered, there is no debate
about the Europeanness of the countries located around the Black Sea
such Ukraine and Romania. Moreover, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan are
those to whom the EU is given green light about the membership in
long-term. More absolute example is of course the membership of the
Greek Cyprus which is located just Turkey’s south. And just to remind,
Turkey’s land in the European continent is much bigger than those of
many EU member, in terms of both geography and population.
Therefore, it seems totally unacceptable to pursue an argument in
geographical terms and it would damage the credibility of the EU for
the possible upcoming enlargements or policies towards the countries
located around Turkey.
In addition, the EU seems to form a discriminatory approach in cultural
and religious perspective. This is an approach fostering Huntington’s
famous ‘clash of civilization’ claim. It seems a dangerous approach
because of which the clash of civilization debate could be occurred
once again. It is possible to see the similarities between Sarkozy’s
speech and that of organizations such as El-Qaeda.
This is because while Sarkozy says that Turkey is a Muslim and not a
European country and should never be its member, El- Qaeda similarly
never wants Turkey to be involved in a Union regarded as a Christian
one. To act in a same manner with such kind of terrorist organizations
never help the EU which suffers from the religionist terror. This case
could then cause to undermine the struggle of the EU against terrorism.
What more to parallel the argument above, it seems that there is a
policy, pursued by the ones such as Sarkozy in the EU, which ignores
the existence of Muslim society having a considerable population
of about 15 million in the Union. The EU, particularly France, has
experienced an integration problem with the immigrant societies. If
remembered, France experienced rebellions conducted by the immigrants
in the end of 2005 and it is repeated time to time. Also, there is
a considerable increase in nationalist and racist movements in the EU.
The recent debate on new German Migrant Law, aiming to make more
strict the rules for the migrants, forms one of the examples showing
the concerns of the Europeans and how they could behave more harsh
towards the foreigners if their national interests at stake. In such
circumstance, while the EU ignores the immigrant societies, a conflict
will be unavoidable and even may cause a civil war, especially in
France. During the presidential elections, what Sarkozy’s insight
about the Muslim integration in the EU was to regard Turkey as a
country which would cause to increase (!) in the problems in terms
of Muslim integration. In this sense, Sarkozy stated Turkey’s entry
into the European Union would "be the end of political Europe" and
suggested it would worsen the problem of Muslim integration in the
continent.[3] However, the real point should actually have to indicate
the probable contribution of Turkey to the misinterpretations of two
sides, Europe and Muslim states, so as to eliminate the problem in a
case of Turkey’s EU membership. Just to remind, there are other Muslim
countries outside Turkey, which the EU made commitments of either to
be potential member or advanced relations of the Union. Therefore,
Turkey could be a dialog bridge between the European continent and
the Middle East, it would then be easy for Europe, via Turkey, to
comprehend Muslim world and vice versa. Then, why Turkey can not be
an antidote for a potential clash of civilization?
Consequently, the message given by the EU which is against the
principle of pacta sund servanda, due to mostly Sarkozy, does not
only go to Turkey, it is also taken by the other countries outside of
the Union. How then the image of the EU might be regarded is a Union
which is not based on a real legal regulation but on the interests.
Those who decide on which way the system will proceed are considered
as just a couple of great powers. This could naturally damage the
image of the EU as a reliable actor in the international arena.
Additionally, a Union aiming at being a global actor would have to
undergo the consequences of its ignorance policy in long term. This
is probably why Olli Rehn, European Enlargement Commissioner, has
warned France not to seek to bloc Turkey’s accession bid and said
"if a member country or a group of countries want to chase the chosen
course, they must bear responsibility for the consequences"[4].