Two leaders speak out. Developments have been pretty momentous. I had barely formulated a few ideas on the way in which divergences on Turkey could be prevented from wreaking havoc in the European Union (see this section 17 September), when two senior officials came out with almost the same views. Luxembourg prime minister Jean-Claude Juncker considered that if negotiations opened up (it would be necessary to respect Turkey as an interlocutor), things need not necessarily culminate in accession: the two parties could by common agreement move towards different solutions. Austrian Chancellor Wolfgang Schüssel said that he would not express reservations if the European Council moved towards opening negotiations in the understanding that these negotiations would not necessarily lead to accession. Angela Merkel president of the German Christian Democrat Part (CDU), wrote to prime ministers belonging to the EPP (eight of them) and the future president of the Commission, José Manuel Barroso, to request a "common effort" for finding a single position that went in the direction of "building a special and strengthened partnership" with Turkey.
In parallel, the positions in the opposite direction are mounting up. I won't be looking at them now, that would be impossible, as well as being a waste of time as the extreme positions are un-reconcilable. For some of them, Turkish accession would demolish the thesis of "the shock of civilisations" and isolate radical Islam by contributing to the evolution of a moderate Islam, while proving that the EU is not an exclusively "Christian club". For the others, this accession, would definitely signal the end to constructing a political Europe that had its say in the world and which would make the EU institutionally impotent and financially unworkable. Rather than continuing to accumulate arguments in favour of one or other of these theses, I think it useful to look at an analysis based on another point of view.
Mr Seminatore's strategic analysis. I am referring to a strategic reflection of the president of the European Institute of International Relations (IERI), Irnerio Seminatore, who examined the two fold repercussions of accession: those on the internal Turkish system (notably relations between the military and civilian powers) and effects on international relations.
His conclusions on the internal situation are rather disturbing: "Moderate Islamic policy supports the essential role of the army; guarantor of Attaturk's secular legacy. The disappearance of this role, as demanded by Europe, in compliance with the Copenhagen criteria, would submit Turkey to the double challenge of meeting the double challenge of theocratic conception of rampant Islamisation and resisting the pressures on the political unity of the country via demands for independence from its minorities". At the same time, EU efforts towards its political unity would at least be speeded up " to summarise rather brutally, Turkey is a friend and strategic partner of Europe from the outside and an enemy of European unity if it finds itself within".
Mr Seminatore considers that in connection with strategic repercussions, the EU has promised accession "without fully taking into consideration future implications…For the moment, the EU does not have either the capability, world geo-political vision or options involving alliances". On 7 March 2002, the Turkish General Tncec Kilink confirmed that if EU accession was not forthcoming, his country would have to turn to "the highly unstable zone stretching from Iran to the Russian Federation, via the Caucasus and the Black Sea, which would delineate a strategic turning point. This would make Turkey a key actor in all directions involving access to Central Asia, energy and the sensitive seas in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean".
Based on all the evidence, Mr Seminatore comes up with a positive evaluation of the significance and perspectives of this hypothesis, which would involve Europe having to respond to two fundamental questions. The first simply asks, "how can the secular area be expanded outside of the army His answer is that the EU "cannot offer a model of the extension of the secular area within heterogeneous societies on which it has not control". The second looks at dangers of accession to Turkish unity, dangers resulting from the application of the "criteria of Europe, which have been dictated due to concerns about safeguarding individual rights rather than by security imperatives", which would encourage minority demands. These demands 'from the Kurds, but not only them), leads the author to consider more extreme developments, "nothing rules out that in the case of Turkey been torn apart by irredentist demands, the European part of Turkey remains Turkish…which moves this single province of its ancient unity towards Europe, which is geographically and strategically European" whereas the entry of Turkey as it currently stands, would risk "marking the beginning of a process of continental fracture and instability".
An alternative solution. According to Mr Seminatore, the right solution, which would take into account of all the strategic aspects and involve the Caucasus with its new republics born from the dissolution of the USSR and Russian itself, would be a "stability pact between the Black Sea and the Caucasus, which would support Trans-Eur-Asian cooperation. This initiative would indirectly bring Europe and Central Asia closer together…Turkey would benefit from an obvious advantage, through its strategic triangle with Russia, enjoying both protection and assurance on its Southern flank, and the European Union, soon to be expanded to Bulgaria and Romania, playing a role of dominant economic power in the Black Sea and Trans-Caucasus.
Positive for Turkey, this orientation will also be so for Europe: "Europe's influence will also in conclusion be strengthened in a world rather than regional perspective…This option will be more favourable to Europe in a balanced international set up side by side with the USA. Relations with Islam will gain from a geopolitical reading of the world from an European Union viewpoint, rather than through a mesh of theological and cultural analyses.
Whatever transpires, Mr Seminatore thinks it "indispensable and urgent to open up a geopolitical and strategic debate on Turkey's accession candidacy in the goal of reorienting the Turkish option towards a more favourable direction that converges with the real interests of Eurasia' security". He has also, insofar has he has strengthened them, enjoined the remarks I made in this section on 17 September and which should now be agreed to as a necessary element of this case, namely, that by "reducing accession negotiations to the Copenhagen criteria alone, would be concealing the complexity of the Eurasian equation and would signify blindness in the analysis of the international system".
The IERI draft can be consulted at their website: (IERI@belgacom.be).
An irreplaceable basic document. Given that I am currently involved in illustrating the interventions and documents that can contribute to understanding the Turkish question and in a more general sense, the complex question of the EU's external borders, I would like to look at the second edition (revised and corrected) of Jean-François Drevet, "'Elargissement de l'Union Européenne, jusqu'ou?" (Harmattan publications, Paris, Budapest and Toronto). The characteristic of this book is that it provides a precious tool for understanding Turkey's accession to the EU whatever their opinions are on the question. Certainly the author, (graduate in geography from L'Ecole normale in France) and who is currently a senior official at the European Commission, has his opinions but aims to target more clearly the situations and the stakes at play. His goal is clearly indicated in the introduction, "the author is hoping to contribute to the implementation of a provision providing basis information on events that are still poorly understood. He would like the citizen-reader, thus informed, to be able to reach an opinion and subsequently support solutions necessary for Europe to succeed in its unification". This goal justifies the historical and chronological aspect of the book, the priceless cartography, the quotes and the ethnographical analyses that clarify the ideas.
The 25 pages on Turkey continue from the 1963 association agreement, which for the first time mentioned the possibility of Turkish accession (but "we were never clearly aware at the time" what this phase involved. It then looks at the different stages of the 40 years of discussions, until the December 2002 commitment to open accession negotiations if Turkey "satisfied the political criteria of Copenhagen". Turkey rejected the EU's demand for a long time, considering that they were a threat to its sovereignty; but in the recent phase, Turkish authorities have done their best to gradually respect the political criteria of Copenhagen (up to the latest developments involving the recent penal code reform and criminalisation of adultery). Mr Drevet believes that a significant section of the political forces and Turkish public opinion "do not clearly distinguish between the existing difference between the partnership with Washington, which allows Turkey a significant margin for manoeuvre in ins internal affairs, and accession to a Union of States with interdependency at all levels" (which the Turkish authorities describe as interference with national sovereignty and which will become binding obligations for EU Member States). The author points to the obligations of producing provisions for protecting minorities, such as the Kurds mentioned in the Treaty of Lausanne (Armenians, Jews, Greek Orthodox minorities). It will be difficult for Turkey to "refuse autonomy to 12 million Kurds and to remain an independent state for the 200,000 inhabitants in the North of Cyprus". Mr Drevet explains that the dislocation of the USSR has lead to the creation of 5 independent Turkish-speaking republics (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kirghizistand and Uzbekistan) and that according to current forecasts, the population of turkey will supersede that of Germany in around 2015 (as well as the millions of Turkish residents already living in the Union).
There can be no serious discourse on Turkish accession if this data is ignored. (F.R.)