Today’s Zaman, Turkey
Feb 16 2013
France courts better ties with Turkey
by ABDULLAH BOZKURT
It is interesting to see that France, under the leadership of
socialist François Hollande, has started courting better ties with one
of fastest growing economies in the world, Turkey, by offering
incentives to smooth out the existing problems between the two
countries. This overture, long overdue between Paris and Ankara,
coincides with the repeated rebuffs by German Chancellor Angela
Merkel, who successfully lobbied against the French proposal to bring
down the value of the euro to stimulate the struggling French economy
and sputtering exports. Merkel, joined by Britain’s David Cameron,
also blocked Hollande’s effort to make the EU budget focus on
infrastructure spending as opposed to budget cuts.
Sandwiched between the two major economies, France is now
understandably looking for a way out to relieve the pressure of the
crisis that brought French economic growth to a grinding halt at 0
percent last year. France, the second-largest economy in Europe after
Germany, is not expected to recover from flat-lining this year,
either, missing the government-announced budget deficit targets as
well as the EU ceiling of 3 percent economic output. The unemployment
rate is around 10 percent in France, and the country’s debt is likely
to remain over 90 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). French
exporters are struggling to maintain the level of market share they
have abroad as well.
All of sudden, Turkey has started to look like a promising prospect
for French businesses that want to stay in the game of trade among
European economic powerhouses. French knows how to do business in
Turkey and has deep-rooted, historic connections with the
Muslim-majority country. French companies are not only interested in
the huge consumer market of 76 million in Turkey in itself, but are
also motivated by the idea of penetrating third markets using Turkey
as a launch pad. That is why we have been seeing increasing mergers,
takeovers and joint mergers between French and Turkish companies in
recent years. Posting losses on the home front, French automakers
Peugeot-Citroen and Renault are shifting their manufacturing options
abroad, including in Turkey, where Renault kept its lead in sales in
2012.
Hollande is very much aware of the value that Turkey can bring to the
French economy and is maneuvering to accumulate enough political
capital to spend in Ankara when it is needed. Lifting the French veto
on one negotiation chapter in Turkey’s EU membership talks, to be
possibly followed by more, was in fact an indication of that policy.
The French authorities’ recent crackdown on the financial network of
the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and others groups —
listed as terrorist organizations by Turkey, the US and the EU — from
operating in French territory is another sign of its revamped policy
towards Turkey.
As Turkish Economy Minister Zafer ÇaÄ?layan tried to explain to his
counterpart, Nicole Bricq, and a group of French CEOs over a breakfast
in Ä°stanbul last month, Turkey has plans to invest some $250 billion
in the coming decade in the fields of energy and transportation,
hinting that French companies can tap into these mostly
government-financed mega projects. The fact that both countries set up
working groups in the fields of energy, agriculture, the environment
and urban development in joint economic meetings shows that
cooperation schemes are well under way. The trade volume between the
two countries, at some $15 billion as of last year, is far below the
potential between the countries considering the size of their
economies. It was a lost opportunity as cooperation was hindered by
political disputes between the two, most of them not directly tied to
bilateral issues.
For example, the French business community is still recovering from a
stupid mistake committed by a few French politicians led by former
president Nicolas Sarkozy, who pushed for the criminalization of the
denial of the so-called Armenian genocide to score few points in the
presidential election. When the bill was approved in the French
National Assembly in December 2011, Turkey had to react by freezing
its political, military and economic cooperation schemes at the
intergovernmental level. A Prime Ministry decree on Jan. 4, 2012
instructed all government agencies to stop working with French
companies and institutions until further notice. The bill was passed
in the French Senate on Jan. 23, 2012, but France’s Constitutional
Council struck it down on Feb. 28, ruling that the law was
contradictory to the principles of freedom of expression as written in
France’s founding documents.
Hollande’s overtures with Turkey during his meeting with the Turkish
president on the sidelines of the Chicago NATO summit on May 2012,
followed by his talks with the Turkish prime minister in the Rio+20
Earth Summit in June, has paid off in restoring ties between the two
countries. When the details for rapprochement were hammered out in a
meeting held by French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his Turkish
counterpart, Ahmet DavutoÄ?lu, in Paris in July, the Turkish government
decree imposing restrictions on France was lifted. But in the
meantime, some 1,000 French companies doing business in Turkey had
felt the brunt of the chill in ties.
Paris also closely monitors Ankara’s aggressive and ambitious trade
diversification policy, especially in Africa where French interests
are at stake in francophone countries. It seems that Hollande is
opting to cooperate with Turkey in Africa instead of risking a
confrontation in order to maintain the French position in these
markets. As was seen in Tunisia and in other places, anti-French
sentiment is on the rise in the African continent. The operation in
Mali is not expected to soothe tensions for France and in fact may
have complicated matters even more by fueling a new debate over French
colonial and imperial ambitions. Hollande believes that it can limit
damages to French interests by enlisting the help of Muslim-majority
Turkey, which has no bitter historic baggage in Africa.
If there is clear political willingness in Paris to boost ties with
Turkey, it is hard to imagine any major challenges standing in the way
of a more fruitful cooperation. Both Ankara and Paris can work
constructively on the improvement of bilateral ties. Most problems
like the genocide, the EU, Cyprus and others have strong third-party
dimensions, anyway. Maybe it is time to push these distractions aside
and start working on the real problems so that the two countries can
reach their full potential in trade and economic cooperation. For one,
both countries need to make better use of the Joint Economic Committee
to deliver results in boosting trade. The committee can start tackling
problems like quota certificates applied by France to Turkish truckers
for transit permits that have not been increased for a long time or
other technical barriers that are holding up growth in terms of Ro-Ro
ferries carrying containers between French and Turkish ports.
Following the icebreaking initiatives by the French government in
recent months, Hollande’s much-anticipated official visit to Turkey,
the first by any French president since 1992, can serve as an
important landmark in relations. Parliament needs to restore the
Turkey-France friendship group which was hastily — and frankly
unnecessarily — disbanded by the parliament speaker in the aftermath
of the December 2011 crisis. Both sides should also work on issues
that have poisoned the climate on ties. All the investment in
political goodwill may be in vain if we allow the centennial of the
Armenian tragedy in 2015 to deal another yet more powerful blow to
ties. This will trigger another blowback from Ankara, spilling over to
other areas of cooperation including economic ones. Understanding this
risk, France is now discussing the case with the Turkish government to
find a solution that will satisfy Turkish concerns. That is quite
understandable. After all, Hollande’s priority is to deliver tangible
results for the economy, which matters more to all French citizens
rather than dwelling on historic issues that should be left to
academic studies.
From: A. Papazian