Turkey in the EU
Finally, something the PM and I agree on. I especially like the comparison regarding French intransigence regarding the UK’s membership in the 1960s and their same position today regarding Turkey — though it’s likely that their position vis-à-vis Turkey is more racially motivated than that regarding the UK, which had more to do about entrenching French “power”.
The logic of Turkish membership has always seemed clear to me. Political scientists who study the EU have long held on to theoretical notions of how potential EU membership prods a country to adopt progressively more democratic features, and once membership has been secured democratic norms and institutions become entrenched. Turkey has come a long way on the former with the explicit goal to satisfy Brussels; the only point I see blocking formal accession talks is Cyprus. Furthermore, the benefits of Europe in institutionally embracing a Muslim nation are plain (even if this means a watershed moment in legitimizing cults everywhere, especially in Tennessee).
I’d be surprised if this were a popular position back on the (British) island. Indeed, the poll in the Daily Mail, which otherwise did an atypically even-handed job with this story, runs 80% against. While it’s a self-selecting population of self-selected Daily Mail readers, rendering the results theoretically a hair short of reliable, that 80% of British citizens are opposed to Turkey’s membership doesn’t seem too wide of the mark.
The PM risks more than alienating several EU partners, but also his own party:
Mr Cameron’s words put him at odds with France, Germany and Tory Right-wingers who believe Turkey may be incompatible with the EU.
Though it must be said that those same Tory right-wingers also believe the United Kingdom to be incompatible with the EU.
By turning away Ankara, the EU pushed Turkey into its neo-Ottoman policy, reduced the incentives for the AKP to moderate its Islamist tendencies, and excluded a rising economic power. The disastrous impact of the EU’s current intransigence (and its earlier decision to admit Greece before Turkey, I might add) will be long felt in Europe, the Middle East, and Eurasia.
Incompatible, yes.
Keep in mind that Turkey – a country with 70 million people would also have influence and vote on the EU. And extradition rights as well. It would almost be as if Sharia Law was being forced on the EU (IE someone in London subpoenaed and sent to prison in Ankara).
Turkey has slipped back into hard line Islam. Also note the fact that the best selling book in Turkey is Mein Kampf.
Last time I looked there were quite a few people IN the EU who were quite keen on Hitler…
It would almost be as if Sharia Law was being forced on the EU (IE someone in London subpoenaed and sent to prison in Ankara).
Yes, it would be terrible if the British government got itself into some sort of diplomatic chokehold that meant innocent people being sent from Britain to Middle Eastern nations with poor human rights records to be tortured in prison.
Oh, wait.
I am not opposed to the idea of Turkey joining the EU, but I still have qualms about their treatment of the Kurds and aspects of their democracy – it has not been long since the courts tried to ban the AKP, and only slightly more than a decade since the ‘post-modern coup’. Nonetheless I agree that the bigger issue remains the issue of Cypriot recognition.
One issue that I rarely see raised, which isn’t surprising given the other challenges to Turkish accession talks (human rights, economics, Cyprus, and so on) is whether or not the EU really wants an external border with Iraq. Of course the border would be with Iraq’s relatively stable Kurdish areas, though those come with their own headaches for Turkey and presumptively the EU. I’m not sure if accession is a good idea or not, but I feel like that is an issue that garners surprisingly little attention. Or I may be reading in the wrong places, which is also entirely possible.
I’m not sure the border issue matters or is relevant. I’d imagine Turkey would not gain immediate entry into the Schengen zone, which mitigates the concept / construct of an EU “border” with Iraq.
Mr. Cameron argued that those opposed to Turkey’s accession fell into three categories: protectionists who see its economic power as a threat,
Er, what? I’d be interested to hear about anyone who actually believes this. The Turkish economy is half the size of Italy’s.
The economic argument is more probably “Turks are poorer per capita than any EU citizens except the Romanians and the Bulgarians, who joined in the 2007 round, and there’s a lot of them, so won’t that either cost the EU a lot more or divert funding from existing projects or both?”
And “Cameron makes speech giving complete support to US policy objective” is rapidly becoming “dog bites man”…
Dave – I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your pro-Turkey argument, as opposed to those of say Daniel Hannan who really do seem to view the whole thing as a way of undermining the EU while pretending to be for it. But lets get real – the reason that DC and the Tories are so big on Turkey joining the EU, and Germany and France so against, is that the Tory party is on a singular mission to destroy the European Union as a political projected and bringing an unready Turkey into the Union is a good way to do that.
But I disagree with Turkish membership for one reason only – it has not met the standards the EU demands of its members regarding basic democratic freedoms. It routinely restricts freedom of speech on a number of topics. Military coups d’etat have long been part of the fabric of political life (with the last one disrupted in 2010.) And its record on basic human rights, from torture to the death penalty is appalling. Turkey has come far, its true. It still has to go farther. I think diluting the standards of liberalism that the EU demands just to accommodate Turkey so we can pat ourselves on the back for bringing an Islamic state into the Union would be counter-productive and patronising.
BTW – I also have to take issue with your comments on Tory right wingers and the EU. Reading a fantastic little book on the troubles of the Tories after 97 right now, and it makes the vital point that if you look at Thatcher’s speeches during the ’75 Referendum (she was in favour) the language looks like something coming from an arch-federalist think tank. The Tories were quite keen on ever closer union – until they realised that meant actually sharing power and occassionally accepting difficult decisions, and threw their collective rattle out of the pram.
The Tories were quite keen on ever closer union – until they realised that meant actually sharing power and occassionally accepting difficult decisions, and threw their collective rattle out of the pram.
Elsewhere I came across Jeremy Thorpe’s argument for going into the EEC, as expressed to British millionaire and nutter Jack Hayward:
“Well, I used to say, ‘I don’t want anything to do with Europe.’ And Jeremy used to say, ‘My dear fella, if we joined Europe, with our expertise on how to run an Empire, we’ll be in charge of Europe! We will be the master race!’
The single biggest mistake the EU ever made was letting the Brits in, the best thing the EU could do at this point in time is kick the Brits out until they figure out whether they want to be European Country or the 52nd State…
51st, surely?
Also, it’s not as though the EU has obviously suffered since the UK joined in 1973. The reverse, I’d say.
Iraq already got 51st.
Your username is aptly chosen.
What’s the good sense in going against British–and European–public opinion in this issue? If only a minority of Europeans and some European governments want Turkey in, why push?
The US thinks it would do better in the Middle East if it can point to Turkey as a Muslim country that’s been accepted by the West (in the form of the EU) and is doing well as a result. For this reason, the US has been pushing the EU to take on Turkey for some time now.
In that light, Charlemagne’s point about the United States’ misunderstanding of what the European Union is and what Turkish membership would entail deserves to be repeated.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2010/06/turkey_and_eu
Not good sense, just Standard Operating Procedures. Af-Pak is more unpopular than ever with the populace, but the governments have steadfastly ignored that little detail. So why should popular opinion matter now, when money and/or power are at stake?
Until Turkey acknowledges it’s role in the murder or millions of Armenians during and after the First World War, it’s understandable why the EU keeps their asses out.
It would be if they actually cared about the Armenians. Unfortunately, then and now from the POV of Euro-conservatives, that was “wog-on-wog violence, so what?” I keep signing the petitions, but so far nothing has come of it, not even a really stern resolution of condemnation. If only the Armenians had more money. /snark
I think that being open to Turkey eventually joining is a good thing: there are few reasons beside bigotry to oppose Turkish admission once they have resolved their issues with democratic governance, human rights, and Cyprus and if their economy grows enough to become comparable to what some of the E. European economies were like upon admission. (The only semi-good reason left is the shear size of Turkey: how much voting power do you give them? How does it tip the balance of power?)
But Turkey is still far from meeting European standards on democracy and rights, still have the Cyprus issue unresolved, and still have a relatively under-developed economy. Pushing for their admission in the near future strikes me as either a perverse desire to undermine the EU or a desire to cater to American foreign policy preferences. Either or both are possible with respect to Britain.
(deep breath)
But apart from that, they’re good, right?
What I’m saying is that they should not be admitted in the short term, but they should be considered for admission in the long term. It’s not clear to me what Cameron’s time horizons are: is he saying he wants Turkey to be admitted now or is he merely saying he’s open to the ideaat some point? The US has been pushing for Turkey to be admitted as soon as possible, which I think is a mistake, but many in Europe have been suggesting Turkey should never be admitted, which I also think is wrong. Sorry if that was unclear.
No, that was clear – I was just entertained by the “But apart from that, what have the Turks ever done to irritate us?” feel of the list.
And I’d agree with the basis of what you’re saying, which is as I understand it that all these problems are susceptible to solution, mostly by the Turkish government itself, so there’s certainly no reason to rule Turkey out forever.
Economically, as I mentioned, they’re already ahead of Romania and Bulgaria on a per-capita basis; but I’m not sure it was a great idea letting them in either.
I would be interested to know what timescale Cameron’s working on; there’s nothing in his speech to say “Turkey should be in NOW or at least by 2015″. A lot of the speech seems definitely to be aimed at a US audience.
I’m quite a Turkophile myself, but the Republic will never admit to the Armenian Genocide. Denial of which has become a cornerstone of Kemalist Turkey.
I was recently retracing William Dalrymple’s book about Eastern Christianity, and the Turkish Republic has done an admirable job of wiping out the existence of minorities who have lived in the borders of the present day Republic longer than the Turks themselves.
The Geeeks also pursued a good deal of ethinc cleansing as part of their failed attempt to reconstitute the Byzantine Empire in the wake of WWI.
I’d find all of this more credible if there was one argument here that didn’t apply to existing EU member states.