TURKEY AND EUROPE: THE DECISIVE YEAR AHEAD
International Crisis Group
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Dec 15 2008
Belgium
Turkey is entering a critical year, in which its prospects for
European Union (EU) membership are at make or break stage. Domestic
crises over the past two years have slowed national reform, betrayed
the promise of a new constitution and undermined the political will
needed to pursue accession negotiations. Its leaders show scant sign
of changing course, at least before the March 2009 local elections,
and EU states are applying little pressure to reinvigorate reform. Both
sides need to recall how much they have to gain from each other and
move quickly on several fronts to break out of this downward spiral
before one or the other breaks off the negotiations, which could then
well prove impossible to start again.
The dangers to Turkey of this loss of EU-bound momentum are already
evident: weak reform performance, new tensions between Turks and Kurds,
polarisation in politics and the potential loss of the principal anchor
of this decade’s economic miracle. For Europe, the cost would be longer
term: less easy access to one of the biggest and fastest-growing nearby
markets, likely new tensions over Cyprus and loss of leverage that real
partnership with Turkey offers in helping to stabilise the Middle East,
strengthen EU energy security and reach out to the Muslim world.
Paradoxically, the reform program went off course in 2005 concurrently
with the launch of EU membership negotiations. A first reason was
bitterness that the Republic of Cyprus was allowed to enter in
2004, even though it was Turkish Cypriots, with Ankara’s support,
who voted for the reunification deal (the Annan Plan) backed
by the UN, the U.S. and the EU itself, while the Greek Cypriots
voted it down. Then the AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi – Justice
and Development Party) government lost motivation as France and
Germany worked to block Turkey’s EU ambitions. It was disappointed
by the failure of the European Court of Human Rights to overturn the
Constitutional Court’s rejection of a hard-fought amendment to allow
women university students to wear headscarves. It was also distracted
by need to concentrate on other Constitutional Court cases brought by
the secularist establishment that narrowly failed to block the AKP’s
choice of president and to ban the party but deepened the polarisation
of domestic politics and institutions. Simultaneously an upÂsurge
in attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) focused attention
increasingly on security issues.
Turkey now pledges to relaunch reforms with a new National Program
for Adopting the EU Body of Law (the acquis communautaire). The draft
text focuses on anti-corruption measures through regulation of state
tenders and state incentives, judicial reform and more democratic laws
governing political parties and elections. In particular, AKP officials
mention lowering the 10 per cent national electoral threshold for a
party to enter parliament; allowing 100 of that body’s 550 seats to
be determined by nationwide proportional voting; and lengthening the
short daily broadcasts in Kurdish and liberalising their content.
However, such plans are years late and fall short of EU expectations
expressed in a 2007 Accession Partnership document and the European
Commission’s annual progress reports. While the EU seeks many
changes within a one- or two-year timeframe, Turkey envisages longer
horizons. Instead of showing determined political commitment to the EU
process, some top Turkish leaders have preferred to adopt an injured
tone of complaint about Brussels’ demands and criticism. Above all,
implementation has lagged: despite brave talk that it would replace
the Copenhagen Criteria the EU has used since the early 1990s to
assess a candidate’s status with its own "Ankara Criteria", Turkey has
passed only one sixth of a self-developed list of 119 legal reform
measures announced in April 2007. Most disappointingly, the AKP has
also dropped its prime promise in that year’s election campaign of
a new, truly democratic constitution.
This slowdown comes just as Turkey’s initiatives to encourage
openness and calm tensions in the region are showing how much it can
do to advance EU foreign policy goals. Ankara has helped de-escalate
crises over Iran’s nuclear policy and Lebanon; mediated proximity
talks between Syria and Israel; and opened a new process of contacts
with Armenia and cooperation with Iraqi Kurds. It is also supporting
promising new talks on the reunification of Cyprus, where a settlement
could provide a critical breakthrough for its relationship with the EU
over the next year. Such initiatives helped win Turkey a two-year seat
on the UN Security Council from January 2009. Conversely, however, a
failure to live up to the commitment made in 2005 to open seaports and
airports to Greek Cypriot traffic in 2009 would risk anti-membership
EU states seeking to suspend Turkey’s accession negotiations.
EU member states should seize the chance to fix past mistakes over
Cyprus by prioritising success in the new negotiations on the island
and do more to encourage Turkey to revitalise its reform effort. EU
politicians must stop pushing the qualifying bar ever higher for
Turkey and restate that they stand by their promise of full membership
once all criteria are fulfilled. For its part, Turkey should be
less sensitive to slights and stop treating the EU as a monolithic
bloc. It should take care to avoid the trap of self-exclusion, keep
its foot in the still open door and, like the UK and Spain before it,
refuse to take "no" for an answer.
RECOMMENDATIONS
To the Government of Turkey:
1. Recommit to EU-compliant reforms at the highest executive level;
immediately approve and begin implementation of the draft National
Program for Adopting the EU Body of Law; and re-establish trust between
parliamentary parties and cooperation on the EU membership goal.
2. Sustain full support for the current round of talks on a Cyprus
settlement and avoid navy intervention against oil exploration in
waters claimed by Greece or the Republic of Cyprus.
3. Broaden the policy of inclusion towards the Turkish Kurds by both
sustaining economic development plans in Kurdish-majority areas and
developing wider cultural and language rights.
4. Extend freedoms and equal rights for members of all faiths in
choice of religious instruction at school, access to seminaries and
status of places of worship.
5. Sponsor and encourage an inclusive process of national discussion
leading to the adoption of a new, less authoritarian civilian
constitution and reform political party and electoral legislation to
increase transparency and representation.
To the EU and Governments of EU Member States:
6. Reassert firmly and often that Turkey can achieve full membership of
the EU when it has fulfilled all criteria; lift unofficial blocks on
the screening and opening of negotiating chapters; and familiarise
Turkish companies with the requirements, benefits and costs of
complying with the EU body of law.
7. Take a greater, even-handed interest in Cyprus settlement talks;
send senior officials to visit both community leaders in their
offices on the island; underline willingness to give financial support
for a solution; and consider delaying oil exploration in contested
territorial waters while talks are under way.
8. Support and coordinate with recent Turkish foreign policy
initiatives to de-escalate crises in the Caucasus and the Middle East.
9. Crack down more firmly on financing from Europe of the Kurdish
militant group the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party); ensure that requests
in relation to the arrest and extradition of suspects accused of
terrorist attacks in Turkey are fairly dealt with.
10. Encourage Turkey to ensure that steps in support of more freedom of
religion are taken not just for non-Muslim minorities but also involve
a commitment to the rights of Muslims, including non-mainstream faiths
like the Alevis.
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