Too big to swallow?Mixed feelings overTurks’ EU ambitions
How times change. In a deft about-face in 1999, then-premier Costas Simitis turned Greek foreign policy on its head by lifting Athens’s perennial objections to Ankara’s EU ambitions. Greece would no longer be the villain that kept Turkey out in the cold and it could now be spared the finger-pointing of its European peers. A half-decade later, Turkey is the elephant in the European bed. It is too idiosyncratic a candidate to simply be uncontroversial: It is very big, it is very poor, and it barely lies on European soil. And it is not Christian. The typical mix of pessimism and hope was again in abundance during a conference on Turkey’s European prospects organized by the European Network for Information and Communication (EURONEM) in Athens last week. Those who want to open the door to Turkey appear to do so less for the anticipated benefits and more out of fear of the consequences of saying «No.» Now that the Cold War is no more, champions of Turkish membership say, the old Europeans must not only expand the definition of themselves but also update their strategic outlook: Slamming the door on Ankara would send the wrong signal to a Muslim world eagerly watching Turkey playing the card of secularism and democracy – even if it’s not a perfect example. «Neither the European Union nor the United States would like to see a state in the region treading down an unchecked and, potentially, Islamist path,» Evangelos Venizelos, a Socialist former minister, said. Greeks, of course, are worried about developments closer to home. It took them some 400 years to shake off the Ottoman yoke and relations with their neighbors to the east have never been easy. Greece and Turkey stood on the brink of war in 1996 and Athens has never stopped complaining of Turkish transgressions of its air space and territorial waters. Greece, Venizelos assured, will also feel the spillover effect. «Turkey’s integration into the West will have a long-term benefit for our national interests,» he said. «A Turkey locked in Europe will be a more credible and reliable partner.» It’s the same old taming-the-beast policy. But if past is prologue there is not much to expect, detractors say, noting that Turkey has been an associate member of the EU since 1963 and a member of NATO since 1952, links that have failed to bring calm and stability to the area. True. But it could have been worse without them. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s biggest step in bringing his country closer to Europe may have been extricating Turkey from Cyprus without losing face. Ending the policy of intransigence since the 1974 Turkish invasion of the island, Erdogan gave the nod to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s peace plan that was put to a referendum in both communities. Only the Greek-Cypriot side rejected the blueprint, which lost them the moral high ground on the issue. No one can punish an unloved Turkey anymore by pointing a finger at Cyprus. «We now have to face the victimization of Turkish Cypriots and the decriminalization of the Turks,» Venizelos admitted. Uneasy realities True, even the warmest champions of Erdogan’s cause cannot tiptoe around some uneasy realities about Turkey. First, its size. Turkey has a population of 71 million, 31 percent of which is under 15 years old. In the next 15 years, its population is expected to tower over that of any other EU country. If it becomes a member, Turkey will overtake Germany as the biggest nation with the most voting power. Second, its economy. It took an IMF bailout to rescue the Turkish economy in 2001. Despite considerable progress thanks to the economic reforms launched by the Erdogan government, Turkey’s GDP per head remains a paltry 25 percent of the EU average. «Closing the gap will be a long and painful process for both sides,» said former ambassador Vyron Theodoropoulos. Turkey’s agriculture-based economy is expected to siphon off a massive chunk of the EU’s structural funds, depriving the other needy nations on the European periphery. The likely prospect of a westward migration wave is disquieting for many a European. «The free movement of persons can be a big problem for Greece, particularly in the sensitive western Thrace region,» Theodoropoulos warned. Markets also matter; for European businesses, Turkey is a land of opportunity. Geography is a question too. Most of Turkey’s vast land mass lies in Asia – so it’s hardly a European country. Turkey neighbors such countries as Iraq, Syria and Iran. Making these the borders of the new Europe would be stretching the Europeans’ perception of themselves a bit too far. «It could result in a crisis of European conscience,» Nikos Houdis of Synaspismos Left Coalition said. But since Europe gave the nod in 1963, it could not now back out in the name of geography. Turkey’s notorious human rights record is a further concern. Except for its bloody war on Kurdish PKK rebels in the southeast, Ankara is slammed for persistent human rights violations and torture practices. During a recent visit to Turkey, senior European officials were shocked by images of a violent clampdown on a demonstration intended to mark International Women’s Day. True to form, Erdogan blamed the local media. And then, it’s the «M» word. The army has gone to lengths – four coups in four decades – to preserve Ataturk’s secular legacy. Notwithstanding this, 99 percent of Turks are Muslim. In the wake of 9/11, Europeans feel uneasy at the prospect of hordes of Muslims entering what is, or rather what many Europeans think ought to be, a Christian club. To their disadvantage, Turks occupy a dark spot in the European psyche which is injected with memories of the Ottoman troops arriving twice at the gates of Vienna. Ask the Greeks.
