The Eve of Decision: Will Europe Admit Turkey?

by Soner Cagaptay
Washington Institute Special Policy Forum
December 9, 2004

http://www.cagaptay.com/668/the-eve-of-decision-will-europe-admit-turkey

On December 9, 2004, Soner Cagaptay, Egemen Bagis, and Mark Parris addressed The Washington Institute's Special Policy Forum. The following is a rapporteur's summary of Mr. Cagaptay's remarks.

European Union (EU) Membership Not a Sure Thing

On October 6, 2004, the European Commission released its final report on Turkey's progress toward satisfying the EU's accession rules, known as the Copenhagen Criteria. Although the report stated that "Turkey satisfies the Copenhagen Criteria sufficiently" to enter accession talks, many European counties and the EU itself are still debating whether or not to take that step. This fact serves as proof that Turkish accession is not only a technical process -- defined for other candidate countries as satisfying the Copenhagen Criteria -- but also a political one in which other "non-Copenhagen" criteria and expectations play a role. Hence, even though Ankara has satisfied the Copenhagen Criteria, Turkey's EU membership is not yet a certainty.

On the popular level, the strongest objection against Turkish accession is cultural: Turkey's population is predominantly Muslim. Opposition parties in France and Germany are using this argument in order to raise their own domestic political profile. In France, Nicholas Sarkozy, new leader of the governing Union for the People's Movement (UMP) and a likely challenger to President Jacques Chirac, has adamantly opposed opening accession talks with Ankara and even suggested taking the issue to a referendum. In Germany, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union (CDU) has suggested giving Turkey "privileged partnership" -- in other words, no membership. In Austria, both the government and popular opinion are against Turkey's membership, while in Denmark and the Netherlands public objections have diluted the previous governmental willingness to see Ankara in the EU.

Among EU bureaucrats, objections center on Turkey's size. If it becomes a full member, Turkey may quickly become the most populous country in the EU (it now has 72 million people compared to Germany's 82 million, but its population is growing and Germany's shrinking). In any case, Turkey will be a major decisionmaker in the EU. Moreover, based on past precedent, Turkey would be eligible for significant aid from Brussels. Due to the slow economic growth that has befallen EU countries for many years, Brussels simply does not have that kind of money. Some of the most powerful nations in the EU are not ready to admit this shortcoming and are instead focusing on full implementation of the Copenhagen Criteria in the hope of finding alternative means of delaying or even obstructing accession.

Will the Process Move Ahead?

The EU may demand that Turkey recognize (Greek) Cyprus as a prerequisite for accession, despite Ankara's significant efforts to date, such as including the Greek Cypriots in its customs union with the EU. The prospects for accession would also take a blow if Turkey were to militarily intervene in northern Iraq (e.g., in support of the Turkmen community in Kirkuk, if Turkish public opinion believed that they were put in harm's way by the Iraqi Kurdish maximalist agenda of maintaining exclusive control over the city and surrounding oil fields). These scenarios aside, as long as politicians such as Sarkozy do not succeed in turning their opposition to Turkish membership into official policy, the Turkish accession process will move ahead. Initially, there will be little progress due to popular opposition in Europe. Nevertheless, the process will inch along because Brussels has figured out that it has more leverage on Ankara if it keeps Turkey focused on the EU.

This Special Policy Forum Report was prepared by Nazli Gencsoy, a Dr. Marcia Robbins-Wilf scholar and research assistant for The Washington Institute's Turkish Research Program.

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