Appearance of clarity. The patient reader of this column will not be surprised if I say that the current drama in the negotiations between the EU and Turkey was not unexpected. It is the cost of the tactic of the “obstacle course”: difficulties come one after the other, an ad hoc solution is sought each time and if an obstacle is too great and cannot be overcome, it is got round, a halt is called or speed drops while progress is made on other matters, until the next obstacle. It may be said that this is more or less the way any complex negotiations turn out. That's true, and we have to accept it, but on one condition: that there is agreement on the ultimate aim. In Turkey's case, however, there is only an appearance of a clear objective. Officially, the aim is accession, the texts say so. But they also say that the outcome is “open”, and it is well known that some Member States do not believe in the official objective. There is, too, the issue which we too often pretend to ignore, the matter of national ratification, which, in some Member States, will take the form of a referendum for which, even now, a negative outcome is forecast.
That is why I feel that the long, chapter-by-chapter negotiations and the detailed analyses of the considerable - some might say crushingly heavy - “acquis communautaire” is not the right way to proceed: they present the risk of, from time to time, causing crises which poison the atmosphere and could result in a disastrous break down. The two parties should have the political courage to examine together whether accession is, in fact, the best solution, in the light of the essential criteria, which are: for the EU, the ability to integrate Turkey without compromising its solidarity policies, its institutional way of working or its political ambitions; and for Turkey, the political possibility and the preparedness to agree to the transfer of sovereignty that accession implies. And the question would have to be asked objectively and in good faith whether the advantages and benefits sought through accession could not be achieved through an appropriate form of partnership, thus avoiding the pitfalls.
“Do not humiliate Turkey!” In the recommended analysis, no single party would impose its views. Things would be done jointly, and the EU should always have in mind the advice of Turkish Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk: “Do not humiliate Turkey!”. This is more than a piece of advice. It is a call from a courageous and generous mind spirit not to forget the dignity and history of this partner, the heir to the Ottoman Empire and also the secular tradition of Atatürk. Let us not forget that in its greatest periods, the Ottoman Empire welcomed Jews hunted from elsewhere and did not reject Christians, and that during the times of its greatest territorial expansion, the Parthenon was not touched and the convents and churches of Kosovo remained standing.
The situation in Cyprus is inadmissible, but there is shared responsibility. All that has been said above takes nothing away from the unacceptable situation in Cyprus. We can go round and round as much as we want and lose sight of reality in technical detail, but, objectively, it is impossible for the EU not to react. This is not an administrative issue about the proper working of the EU-Turkey Customs Union, as it is often presented to take the heat out of the situation and to drown embarrassing reality in technical jargon. The reality quite simply is that, today, Turkey is occupying part of the Community militarily.
Can this situation be acceptable to the EU? At the same time, can the historic circumstances which led to this situation and the peculiar nature of the military “occupation” be ignored? Let us take a closer look.
Turkey would never have had the opportunity to invade and occupy the northern part of Cyprus had the Greek-Cypriot powers, under pressure from Greece under the military junta, not announced in 1974 the annexation of the whole island to Greece. More recently, the UN reunification plan was rejected by the Greek Cypriots, making it practically inevitable that the Turkish military presence would become permanent. Even if these historic aspects are put to one side (the Greece of today cannot be blamed for the excesses of the Colonels, from whose power the Greeks freed themselves), nor can we ignore the peculiar nature of the Turkish occupation of the north of the island, peculiar in the sense that the local population does not feel that it is under occupation; on the contrary, it feels protected by this occupation! I believe I showed effectively (in this column of 26 July, bulletin 9239) the extent to which the “occupied” people feel themselves to be Turkish, which they do for the most part, because they came to the island after 1974. For these people, their fellow citizens are not the ones who live in the other part of the island, but the Turks in Turkey. I can only refer you to the column already mentioned. ./..
Commission's wisdom. Responsibilities for the situation, as we can see, are shared and this confusion of the different versions of the truth determined what happened after the events, including the most recent, and in my opinion, the inevitable character of the European Commission's recommendation. Confronted with the demand by those calling for a total halt to accession negotiations and those wanting everything to continue as before, the Commission has acted in a balanced way. Some of the comments essentially highlighted the suspensive aspect of this recommendation, but in his oral declarations, Commissioner Olli Rehn highlighted the fact that negotiations had in no way been interrupted, but had rather been slowed down. Nothing was frozen and there is no hibernation (which would imply a relaunch in spring), explained the Commissioner, adding that in the interest of the two parties they should keep the process alive. We will know next Monday on 11 December whether the Council follows this route, by adding political considerations to it, which would then be confirmed and completed by Heads of governments a few days later.
This moderated discourse (logically submerged by criticism from all directions) is, however, nonetheless, quite clear on what is essential: negotiations will be suspended on everything involving Turkish participation in the greater unified market, not only for goods (which are already moving freely, for the most part, as part of the Customs Union) but also for freedom of establishment, services, agriculture and fisheries, and even for the vast domain of external relations. On other aspects, it will be possible to negotiate but without reaching conclusions because no “chapter” can be closed even if there are no major difficulties. In practice negotiations have been suspended.
For how long? Logically, until “technical” divergences on Cyprus have been surmounted. Observers who know the internal Turkish situation believe that the authorities in Ankara will be unable to move until the new president of the republic has been appointed and new elections have taken place. And even at that time, it won't be easy as in the Cyprus affair, political and technical aspects are closely linked. Those how know the dossier best consider that the failure of the compromise proposed by the Finnish presidency of the Council of the EU was mainly provoked by its directly political aspect, linked not to the movement of goods or their transport but to the territorial situation. This involves a city next to the port of Famagusta, namely, Varosha, which for 30 years has been a ghost town, since the 50,000 inhabitants who previously lived there, left. The Finnish plan stipulates that Varosha be transferred to the UN and that Greek Cypriots who legally remain owners of most of the city return at an undetermined time.
The Turkish authorities have rejected the Finnish formula, which while being progressive and having been amended implied changes to the situation on the ground.
Exploring other possibilities for Cyprus. I am definitively asking myself whether the Cyprus affair cannot help raise awareness as to the implicit dangers in current negotiating tactics, that of the “obstacle course”. This tactic involves the permanent risk of a rupture. It will be avoided next week once the two parties display the same moderation chosen by the Commission but the threat will remain. Differences on Cyprus will go on for a long time to come and I am wondering whether a genuine political reflection is indispensable that takes into account reality and goes beyond the habitual formulas. To be clear I wonder whether projects exclusively founded on reunification of the island are the only way forward. They should, on the contrary, raise a number of questions but avoid perplexities and reticence. History teaches us that forced reunification of people who do not deeply feel part of the same nation can work for extended periods of time but always with the risk of being transformed into horrendous tragedies because the first aspiration of each people is to feel like the master of its own house. In this case, the reassuring long-term solution could be to separate Cyprus into two autonomous parts, not by being founded on the current territorial division, imposed by force, but on objective data.
This formula would raise a number of other difficulties for the EU, which would find itself facing another increase in the number of its members due to the “fragmentation” of another state. A mechanism is now needed for reflection at an institutional level (for the case of Montenegro but perhaps in the future for Kosovo and even other countries). The EU has to think about this but it's another subject. For the time being, it is the Turkish question that needs answering if we want to avoid, either out of intellectual laziness or absence of political courage, the final decision on accession being definined, through an uncertain and risky referendum, with a result that could provoke a horrendous crisis and which is still possible to avoid.
(FR)