"Why Turkey should join the EU in 2023
Why Turkey should join the EU in 2023
By Cengiz Aktar
The second government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed its intention to revive Turkey’s vanishing EU perspective.
Within the new government, EU affairs have been regrouped with foreign affairs, as in Croatia, and the government has reiterated its commitment to the EU process on every occasion. But the Turkish government’s resolve will not be sufficient: the EU needs to send a powerful message of support as well.
After December 2004, when Turkey received the green light for opening EU accession negotiations, the government virtually stopped working on EU matters. Since then Turkey has drifted away from Europe and from the West in general. With the recent row over the election of a new president of the republic, the ultimatum of the military establishment, always ready to meddle in politics, and the prospect of a military incursion into Iraq, Turkey is giving an image of internal and external confusion. The government’s clumsy management of such crisis situations and the disappearance of the European perspective from Turkey’s horizon have played an important role in this crisis which now seems resolved with the 22 July general elections and the election of Abdullah Gül as president on 28 August.
Since the European perspective started to recede, Turkey’s chronic illnesses have resurfaced. The best illustration of this was the ultimatum by the military. Would Turkey’s military establishment have dared to interfere in politics in such a blatant way if Turkey’s European perspective was still alive and if the country was busy negotiating with the EU, like Croatia? Some analysts argue that the army’s meddling in politics has exactly the purpose of derailing the European process. They forget that Turkish military chiefs and in particular the previous chief of staff General Hilmi Ozkok supported groundbreaking reforms implemented by Turkish governments in 2002-04. These reforms were far-reaching and contrast with the present stalemate between secularists and non-secularists in which the military establishment seems to play a role.
In the meantime, in Europe, some politicians have been working against Turkey’s EU accession bid since the end of 2004, when the Turkish government stopped working on EU-inspired reforms. Public surveys carried out both in Turkey and in Europe show that Europeans, fearing that Turkey will become a huge burden for the Union, and Turks, who think the EU will harm their country, have begun to perceive each other almost as enemies.
Both sides need to rebuild trust and should openly say what their intentions are. Turkey’s membership process cannot continue as it has since 2005. Multilateral as well as bilateral relations between the EU and its member states and Turkey cannot be managed in an atmosphere of constant tension, which needs chronic crisis management.
Comments
I interviewed him a couple of years ago :)
Posted by: Selene | September 12, 2007 12:05 AM