In late September this year, Soner Cagaptay, who is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and a leading heavy weight in Turkish affairs, came to the European Parliament to plead the case for Turkey’s accession into the EU. The audience was a mixed bag of deputies, assistants and lobbyists. The overall consensus was pessimistic towards such a move. The bete noire of British politics, Nick Griffin of the BNP, asked about the danger of Islamo-facism on Europe’s borders, and one communications director went as far to preface his point: “Europe needs 75 million working class Turks, the way it needs a hole in its head.”
Despite the fierce opposition, Cagaptay offered a set of pragmatic reasons why Europe needs to keep a hold of this Anatolian tiger. For one thing, Turkey is the second-largest NATO member and has the seventh largest economy in Europe, which is forecast to grow by 5% in 2011. According to the OECD, Turkey will be one of the three fastest growing economies in the world until 2017. If Turkey is to remain a steady partner for the west, then it is critical that EU accession talks continue, and produce results, even if they seem negligible. It is of strategic necessity. Recently Turkey’s Chief Negotiator for EU talks, Egemen Bagis warned “If the European Union decides to freeze accession talks with Turkey, it will be a serious mistake.”
Unfortunately there is a palpable fear, though rarely voiced, within European public opinion of letting the Turks enter. For many Europeans, it is difficult to dispel the image that Turks are simply construction workers and kebab shop owners. Leading European leaders have been instrumental in stalling accession talks. French President Nicolas Sarkozy insists that there is no place within Europe’s borders for Turkey and prefers a privileged partnership, rather than granting full membership.
In Turkey, the AK party under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is steering the country away from its Kemalist roots. When he was first elected in 2002, the AKP announced that it was no longer an Islamist party. However eight years on, the party has worked hard to undermine the position of the secular elite, i.e. the military, the media and pro-opposition business leaders. During the recent constitutional referendum, 58% of the country voted in favour of granting the government a freer hand in selecting judicial appointees. Turkey’s military, which is the protector of Ataturk’s secularist legacy, had its wings clipped in February when seven officers were jailed for allegedly plotting to overthrow the government. Media groups are also under assault. Dogan, the owner of the newspaper Milliyet, was given a $3.3 billion tax fine, for reporting that the AKP was linked to a German Islamist charity. Free Speech is not actively encouraged. Following the killing of the Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, the European Court of Human Rights judged Turkey to be failing in its role to protect and facilitate those who freely express themselves. It is not surprising that a significant portion of Turkish society is unhappy with the way the AKP and Erdogan are leading the country. Pro-EU Turks feel trapped in limbo, due to the mixed messages emanating from Brussels. Fortunately the country has a vibrant civil society, an educated middle class, and if the estimates are true, the Turkish government will not have to depend on EU cash injections in the coming years to support its economy. It is be up to the new leader of the People’s Republican Party (CHP), Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, to prove to European decision makers that there are millions of Turks who are ready to commit to the reforms proscribed by the Copenhagen criteria.
The opposition needs to have their support bolstered, with the knowledge that the EU has not washed its hands of Turkey. If that is the case, the present government will have little incentive to pretend that accession still matter. Since 2005, much of the pro-EU rhetoric has disappeared, and Erdogan has embraced an authoritarian stance which is alarming to most Europeans. Israeli-Turkish relations have suffered, the government provides succor to Iran and there are many pundits who believe that the country has turned its back on accession altogether. An AKP Turkey is bound to continue this way unless the EU offers a counter weight and proves it has not given up on Turkey.
