Leaving the bad habits behind: Europeans worry that newcomer will undermine values
If it wishes to join the Union, Turkey has to leave some of its bad habits behind. «You cannot expect to join a club and insult its members at the same time,» Theodoropoulos said. Turkish politicians often irritated officials in Brussels by using abusive language to extract an EU talks date. In the end, the Turks got what they wanted, so who can blame them? Few are amused by Ankara’s artless and often insulting formulations. But this is more about Europe. In leaning over to take the new states aboard, the EU should be wary of not bending too far. For what would Europe be without the values and ideals that inspired its founding fathers? International relations professor Panayiotis Karafotias offered a more blunt dilemma. «The question is, do we want a Europe-oriented Turkey, or a Turkey-oriented Europe?» he said. To make sure that it does not lose its heart, the EU has introduced a number of safeguards for its much-treasured values. It was to be expected that would-be members would want to bring down the threshold, but purists are wary of too much flexibility. «Watering down the Copenhagen criteria would be to undermine the very essence of the European project,» Houdis stressed. These criteria dictate that Turkey must establish stable institutions that can guarantee democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and respect of minorities. The government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan has pushed through a swathe of EU-oriented reforms but skeptics remain unconvinced. And after receiving the go-ahead for talks in December, his Justice and Development Party appears to have lowered gear. «The question is not the introduction of legislation, but its implementation,» Theodoropoulos said. Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the former French president who supervised the drafting of Europe’s new constitution, warned that letting Turkey in «would be the end of the European Union.» But it seems unfair to treat Turkey as the gravedigger to the dream of an ever-closer Union, when many of the current members seem to have little appetite for it themselves. Successive waves of enlargement have ballooned membership to 25 nations, tilting the bloc away from the track of fully fledged political union. Far from the ambitious declarations of yesteryear, many European nations would rather reduce the Union to a free-trade zone. «Besides, the EU of today is not the club that Turkey will eventually join,» Venizelos said. The inclusion of the 10 new members and the potential entry of countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia and Serbia and Montenegro will change it for good. So is the EU risking its own dissolution? Probably, but Turkey should not take the blame. In any case, Turkish membership – if it happens – will not take place for another 10 or 15 years. And when it does – if it does – it will certainly be part of a different Europe. «One has to be blind not to see that the EU is already a union of different speeds and reinforced cooperation groups,» Venizelos noted. «Turkey may one day join the EU,» he said. «But it will do so at the lowest available speed.»
