Turkey-Europe: Acknowledging Reality

Turkey-Europe: Acknowledging Reality

As Turkish political elites discuss heavily
about whether to fulfill all the Copenhagen criteria or not in the
recent months, Turkish intellectuals have been parts of a bitter
debate as regards to the future of Turkish-European Union (EU)
relations and as a result divided into two bitterly opposing camps:
One group of Turkish intellectuals that can be named as optimists,
argue that the EU is the only option for Turkey to complete its
Westernization process and to make it to be able to compete with
the industrialized and post-industrialized countries.

Furthermore, Turkish full-membership in the EU
is regarded as a realistic alternative that can be accomplished in
the midterm. The EU train is now waiting for Turkey, and the latter
is expected to comply with economic and political criteria to get
on the train, before it passes by. If Turkey succeeds to make the
necessary reforms, EU will start membership negotiations with it,
interpreted as a guarantee of Turkey’s membership in the coming
years.

The other group, let’s call them pessimists,
does not believe that the EU will accept Turkey’s membership at any
time in the future. According to them, especially political parts
of Copenhagen criteria would harm Turkey’s political structure all
the way down and would even result in breakup of Turkey by
encouraging ethnic consciousness of many people. Although they do
not question Western orientation of Turkish foreign policy, they
support the view that Ankara’s relationship with the EU must be
based on economic cooperation, however, political cooperation
should better be left to a later stage. One of the main suspicions
of this group is that the EU is in fact aiming at keeping Turkey in
its sphere of influence, but not integrating it as a full partner.
They are suspicious of the EU’s goals with regard to Turkey.

I argue that approaches of the above-mentioned
two groups miss certain points in Turkish-EU relations and could
not form the healthy basis of Ankara’s foreign policy toward the
Union. A realistic approach is urgently needed that would consider
both positive and negative aspects of integration with the EU,
internal dynamics and future plans of the Union as well as its
attitude toward the other candidate countries with all of whom
membership negotiations have already begun.

It seems that the EU is not financially or
mentally ready to take Turkey in yet. After the end of the Cold War
era, the focus of EU attention was directed to the Central European
countries, especially Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic,
followed by other candidate countries, except Turkey. EU’s
calculation was that in order to have a security in Europe, these
countries must be an integral part of the “club.” The EU and public
opinion in European countries has been believing that these
countries in fact belong to Europe in a historical and cultural
sense of the term. Their internal problems in trying to reach to
the European standards or their foreign policy quarrels with each
other have not been considered as real obstacles in their way to
the EU; on the contrary, they have been encouraged to solve their
problems with the help of the EU. Romania and Slovakia’s problem
with Hungary over status law that regulates rights of Hungarian
minorities in the former countries, Czech Republic’s problem with
Germany over Benes Decree that stipulated the forced migration of
Sudet Germans during the Second World War or Central European
countries’ problem with the Union over EU financial help in the
agricultural sector, were not considered as harming their chances
of integrating with the EU.

On the contrary, they were awarded for what they
accomplished in their EU-oriented reforms: The most concrete
example of it is their exemption from visa requirements of the EU
countries. As of beginning of this year, Turkish nationals are the
only ones among the all 13 candidate countries who are obliged to
get a visa to travel to any European country. Moreover, even if
they are just transit passengers flying from anywhere in the world
to Turkey via Germany, they have to get a transit visa in the
airport.

In fact, while living in any of the European
countries, it is possible to get grasp of who are the leading
candidate countries: Many students from Poland, Hungary and Czech
Republic are already studying in European countries with EU
scholarship (especially ERASMUS). Moreover, there are many
scholarships offered to EU students who are eager to study in the
Central European countries and learn their language. There is not a
similar policy toward Turkey. Turkish students could not apply for
ERASMUS scholarship and studies on Turkey and Turkish language are
not as much as encouraged as the mentioned ones. These policies are
all parts of the EU strategy that prioritizes accomplishing
integration with the neighboring countries, but not Turkey.

Most of citizens of EU countries does not seem
to believe that Turkey is part of the European civilization. It is
still regarded as “other” whose 97 percent of territory lies in not
the European continent but in Asia. It is a country of too great
size that suffers from many internal and external complicated
problems. It has a different religion that they do not feel close
to their own. One of the most concrete examples of it is felt
especially by young Turkish women without headscarf who study or
work in European countries: They are very often asked of what their
religion is, sometimes directly, other times directly. If European
friends want to ask it in an indirect way, the question takes the
form of whether they come from a secular family! Even this question
is a symbol that how religious affinity and ordinary European’s
perception of Islam still plays a role in their personal
relationships, let alone their view of a country whose population
consists of mostly Muslims.

In addition, it is worthwhile to state that
almost nothing is done in the EU countries to destroy prejudices of
common people toward Turkey. My argument is that if the EU had
planned to offer Turkey full membership in the coming 10 years, it
would have begun to work for that much earlier. I believe, even if
negotiations between Turkey and the Union begin next year, this
would not mean any guarantee of Turkey’s future membership in the
coming future.

After stating that the EU does not make any
future plans to take Turkey into the Club, the Union should be
warned that if it does not provide Turkey with a clear future
perspective and does not make specific its policy aims with regard
to Turkey, it may cause a big frustration for Turkish political
elite as well as ordinary Turkish citizens. If the reforms carried
out by the Turkish political establishment are not awarded somehow,
the main losers of the next election, early or on time, will be the
ones who based their political campaign on as much pro-Europeanness
as possible in Turkish internal and foreign policy. It would
strengthen the nationalist and other extremist tendencies in
Turkish politics that have already begun with the Ocalan affair in
1999 after it had become crystal clear that some EU countries did
really support the PKK. In other words, the EU seems to prepare the
way for a partially non-Europeanization in Turkish internal and
external affairs. It does not appear possible for Turkey to
substantially change its European orientation, however new reforms
could be prevented and some of the past pro-European politics can
be more and more questioned.

Making clear that the EU does not have the
intention to fully integrate with Turkey in the coming decade, what
should Turkey do now at this critical juncture? I argue that Turkey
should try to improve its economic, political and cultural
relations with the Union to the extent possible, however, it must
be aware of the fact that the full membership does not seem on the
horizon yet. Ankara must see that whether it becomes a full member
or not, it should be forced to raise its human rights standards to
the European ones by internal and external dynamics. On the other
hand, the EU should make clear its future plans with regard to the
Turkish membership. An honest relationship would pave the way for a
realistic perspective for the improvement of Turkish-European
relations.

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