Since beginning EU membership negotiations on 3 October 2005, Turkey’s “long journey” towards accession has not achieved the expected results. Yet, in this process there was “no train crash” as some predicted at the end of 2007. There are important parallels between the modernization of Europe, and Turkey’s westernization. This is why the EU membership remains a state policy for Turkey, as the Turkish foreign minister Davudoğlu recently stated during the second ambassadors meeting in Ankara.
For a year now Turkey has had a new “chief negotiator” as state minister for EU Affairs. This shows that Turkey pays great attention to the EU membership, and the reform process within Turkey to become a more democratic society. This renders Turkey a unique candidate for EU membership. The EU is now in its stage of “second founding”, in the words of Professor Ludger Kühnhardt, and now the cardinal question is whether Turkey, which missed by various reasons “first founding”, could join the EU in future. Turkey should join the EU not only for Turkey’s sake, but also the EU’s, in order to create a much more stable, strong and globaly acting Europe.
In December 1999, Turkey got the status of candidacy which had been denied to Turkey in 1989. In December 2004, Turkey received a clear date for the beginnnig of the negotiations—October 2005. Five years have past, and no progress has been made. By putting forward the date of October 2005, the EU wanted to give the world the idea that the EU is not a Christian Club, as many people discussed at the time. Even the Lisbon Treaty rejected this, in spite of some EU countries’ insistince that the EU consititution should have a reference to its Christian values in the preamble. For the EU, Turkey is the country where the Islamic world would look in search of greater sympathy.
The EU wanted to show the US that it was growing and was no longer under its influence. Some thinkers even argued that Turkey was the “Trojan horse” of the US within the EU—a theory that was refuted when following the US intervention in Iraq in 2003, Turkey denied US troops access to its territory for operations. Since then, everyone has spoken of a “Europenazation” of Turkish foreign policy. Indeed, Turkey’s defence concepts and practical policy look more European than expected.
Another factor affecting Turkish succession was Russia. Turkey’s good economic and political relations with Russia were important. Under President Putin, Russia sent signals to the EU that negotiating Turkey’s accession would benefit Russian-EU relations. It was argued that with this membership process, Turkey would be more relaible, accountable, managable and peaceful. Brussels also received these signals from Israel and the Islamic world, and today Turkey is the most valuable membership candidate for the EU with its great political, economic and cultural impact from the Balkans to Central Asia.
Turkey is also a great economic and demographic asset for the EU in the coming decades. With an estimated 90 million population, and a very young one, by the year 2025, it will be the second most populous country after Russia, with its 105 million population in Europe. The question that Turkey is to big in geography and population does not reflect the reality on the global space. According to Prof. Kühnhard, “The European Union comprises 0.86 percent of the globe (4.323.783 square kilometers) and rougly seven percent of the global population (491 million). Even with Turkey as an EU member, these figures would increase only insignificantly to 1.01 percent of global space and nine percent of global population.” In other words, Turkey would contribute for the EU in general in space and demography.
Last but not least, as the former Enlargement Commissioner Günther Verheugen once stated, if the EU is going to become a global player and think in grand strategic terms, it is better for Europe to be with Turkey than without. There is no question that Turkey would also bring a further “intellectual refreshment” in to the European thinking, and not play the role of the “other” but rather being one “with the others”. Turkey wants to be an open, democratic, human rights respecting, woman equality searching society with the values of the modern society protecting the country. In other words, in order to be on the right side of the history, Turkey should join the EU.
Huseyin Bagci
– Professor of International Relations at Middle East Technical University in Ankara and former Senior Fellow at the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn, currently teaches at the Humboldt University in Berlin as a guest professor
