GP Columnists
Rethinking Turkey
In the past year or so, Turkey’s major headlines in the international press were about its fallout with Israel, its brokerage of a nuclear deal with Iran, or its warming to Russia on energy questions. Some seasoned Eurocrats may have scratched their heads asking whether this is still the country whose application for EU accession the Union belatedly and somewhat reluctantly accepted in 1999 and with which it has been negotiating – again not totally enthusiastically – membership since 2005. Yet it is precisely the case that necessitates a change of perpective on the European side, for two reasons: First, Turkey itself has changed a great deal over the past decade, in particular since the AKP (Justice and Development Party) came to power in 2002. But secondly, in the wake of the financial and economic crisis, Turkey’s relative importance in global terms has also changed, and with it its relation to the EU.
For one, it is no exaggeration to say that we are are today dealing with a new Turkey – a different country than the one applying for help from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after the last (Asian-originated) financial crisis of 2000-01. At that time, Turkey faced its most severe recession after World War II combined with hyperinflation. The IMF’s massive intervention to the tune of some 25 billion US-dollars required sweeping reforms in the economic sector. It was the newly elected AKP that inherited those mandated structural adjustments, and added major social transformations to them after the start of accession negotiations. Already by 2005, the investment bank Goldman Sachs, inventor of the famous ‘BRIC’ formula, counted Turkey among the Next Eleven (or N-11) emerging countries.
At least as importantly – and more visibly on the world stage – has been Turkey’s more recent reorientation in foreign policy terms. Ahmet Davutoglu, the special-adviser-turned-foreign-minister, has long been a proponent of a policy based on “zero problems with the neighbours”. Most famously, this included an instance of ‘soccer diplomacy’ on the part of Turkish President Abdullah Gül, who visitied neighbouring Armenia, a long-standing foe, to attend a qualifying match for the World Cup. The policy also extends to Iran, another Turkish neighbour, and an admittedly difficult country to deal with for all of Turkey’s Western partners. Nonetheless, the Turkish government has increased economic ties with the country currently under UN sanctions. What is more, together with Brazil, the Turkish government brokered a trilateral agreement allowing Iran to ship low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for smaller quantities of higher-enriched fuel rods. This deal has irritated Western allies at least as much as Turkey conversion from a deal-broker in the Middle East (leverging especially on next-door Syria) to an ardent critic of Israel (in particular of its Gaza policies). Further afield, Turkey opened 15 new embassies in Africa as part of a new diplomatic initiative, the latter including a Turkey-Africa Summit in 2008.
True, all of these initiatives have yet to bring about lasting change. Especially on the domestic front, there is still a long way to go before Turkey could claim to fulfil European standards, as regular progress reports by the European Commission show. The financial and economic crisis however did not diminish Turkey’s wider ambitions. Despite being hit hard by the crisis in the first place (with the Turkish gross domestic product shrinking by 4,7% in 2009), it managed to stage a recovery most notably whilst refusing the help of the IMF. Unlike Euro zone countries like Ireland and Spain, it has seen its credit ratings upgraded earlier this year based on a healthy banking sector (although concerns have been raised recently with regard to the government’s expansive fiscal policy). And whether Turkey's new foreign policy ambitions survive a potential change of government in next year's elections, is far from certain.
So while the picture certainly isn’t all rosy, what does a resurgent Turkey mean for the EU? It clearly makes the country’s application for membership a sui generis case (a phrase that the Union usually applies to itself). Given the numerious obstacles from human rights issues in Turkey to concerns of the new member’s role in the EU institutions to apprehensions in the publics of a number of member states, this is not only going to be the most difficult accession process. It is also the strategically most important one since the UK’s accession in 1973 (and just as some die-hard “core-Europeans” may still regret this first enlargement, others might in the future have second thoughts about eventual Turkish membership). Which is why the EU (and with it, the U.S.) should – in principle – welcome Turkey’s newfound supra-regional role while assessing its particular merits in detail. For all the talk about Turkey being a bridge towards the Muslim world, European and Americans alike cannot expect the country to take up this function only at their instructions.
The EU should therefore also think about which tangible incentives it can provide in response to progress made on the path to membership. To underscore its seriousness about the negotiation process, the Commission could outline a roadmap to accession in accordance with the Turkish governments planned reform steps. The roadmap would signal a tentative date of accession at the end of the process, if and when all criteria will be fulfilled. This has nothing to do with the much-fearing “giving of a date” which becomes cast in stone so as only to stifle the reform drive. In contrast, such a transparent plan could be used for public debates in the 27 member states about the state of the negotiations and in particular about the progress Turkey is making (or fails to make, for that matter). In the end, the EU has all reasons to whish for a strong and vibrant Turkey, one living up to European values, to finally enter the Union.
Post new comment