In the context of European Union enlargement, as discussed in this column yesterday, Turkey is in a category of its own. Accession was promised to the country a long time ago; negotiations have been going on for several years; the country has made considerable overall progress in the direction of Community principles, and economic and trade relations are closer than with any other candidate country (customs union). At the same time, however, Turkey militarily occupies a part of Community territory and is not applying the customs union to a part of the EU. Moreover, some member states, including France, have explicitly spoken out against accession and in favour of alternative solutions. This column on several occasions has explained that accession is not the appropriate formula for either the EU or Turkey itself.
Institutional shock. The institutional shock for the EU would be colossal. Turkey would have the right to more MEPs than any other member state and would have significant weight in decisions made by qualified majority voting at the Council. With current rules, it would benefit from a major part of agricultural and regional policy funding, and exclude whole regions from the current list of beneficiaries. The accession of a country for which most of its territory is Asia would eliminate any meaning from the notion of European Union. The result of all this would, in my opinion, be the end of the project for political integration in Europe.
I believe that the counter effects are just as significant from Turkey's point of view itself. The government in Ankara is right when it affirms that cooperation alone offered to the country would add nothing to what already exists and that it is abnormal that in a customs union, one of the participating countries is excluded from trade relations with third countries, simply having to accept these relations, respect the results of them and apply the customs tariffs established in its absence. These points are justified and should be taken into account. Turkey, however, should also take into account the repercussions of its accession.
Turkish autonomy is indispensable. Turkey has a need to manage, in a fully autonomous way, certain fundamental aspects of its policy, in its relations with the Kurdish people, for example. The Kurdish Liaison and Information Bulletin considers that Kurdistan is a single entity and was artificially divided into four parts: Turkish, Iraqi, Iranian and Syrian Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurdistan is largely autonomous and is overflowing with oil. It is currently concluding huge foreign contracts. These are not European issues: the EU can play a role from the outside but not include them in its common foreign and security policy (CFSP); Turkey itself would not even accept this.
The Kurdish question is just one example. There is also the Armenian problem (for which the most recent developments have created so much hope and at the same time so much opposition within the Armenian diaspora, which is 9 million strong) and relations with Azerbaijan (a sister country to Turkey but whose High Karabach region is occupied by…Armenians), in addition to other situations that can in no way be included in the CFSP.
Obviously, I am not unaware that Istanbul will be one of the three European capitals of culture next year. This is a great choice but it is precisely Istanbul, formerly known as Constantinople, the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire and then Byzantium. Istanbul is the “capital of different civilisations, home to several different cultures over thousands of years” (this is a sentence written by Sekib Avdagic, head of the Istanbul 2010 programme). Turkey is not, however, just Istanbul - it is above all, an enormous Asian area and has very specific links with Caucasian countries and the whole of the former Ottoman Empire. Europe has nothing to do with some of the situations that require clarification or problems that need resolving. Certain symptoms would appear to indicate that the Turkish people do not entirely share certain European principles and that support for accession has distinctly cooled.
Is the hard-core an alternative? I have indicated that Turkish accession for the EU would mean the end of the supranational project for European unity. What would the solution be, then? Life would be so easy if we could define it in a few sentences. It is even possible to envisage a transformation of the EU into a less structured entity and that within it a compact hard-core would continue down the path towards integration. Such a development is sometimes considered as unavoidable but if it is, it should be spelt out loud. (F.R./transl.rh)