POLITICS-EUROPE: Turkey Knocks on EU Doors Again

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Nov 28 2002 (IPS) - The European tour by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan raises old questions again whether Turkey can ever be a part of Europe.

Erdogan has visited half of Europe since mid November, and following a visit to Paris, he is visiting Denmark, Finland, and Sweden. He wants the European Union (EU) to announce a definitive schedule for Turkish membership at its summit in Copenhagen next month.

Erdogan told French President Jacques Chirac at a meeting in Paris Wednesday that Turkey has put in place substantial economic and political reforms to satisfy membership criteria. "We have a bipartisan political system represented in an elected congress, we have a strong government, and have launched reforms to assure that the economy is ruled by market laws," Erdogan said.

Erdogan said also that the new parliament will pass a constitution "based on individual liberties" to substitute the present one "formulated by the army."

But Turkey will not knock on Europe’s doors for ever, he said. "Our patience with Europe has lasted 40 years but now it is eroding," he said, referring to promises made by European leaders in 1963 that Turkey would eventually be welcomed.

Chirac responded with his standard line: "Turkey has all rights to occupy a place as full member of the EU," he said, "but it has also to completely satisfy the conditions the EU has defined as sine qua non for this full membership."

These "sine qua non conditions" demand that an EU candidate country must be democratic, guarantee the rule of law, and have a market economy.

As a part of the campaign for EU membership, the Turkish government has given up its traditional rejection of international criticism over human rights. The European Court of Human Rights announced Tuesday that the Turkish government had agreed to pay compensation to families of people killed by soldiers or police officers.

The court announced that Turkey had acknowledged that not all reforms have been implemented and that "torture and a lack of effective investigation of torture constitutes a violation of Article 3 of the European Convention of Human Rights." The court noted that the Turkish government has promised to take measures to guarantee respect for the European Convention.

The discussion on membership for Turkey gained momentum after the electoral triumph of the Justice and Development Party (AKP), a breakaway moderate offshoot of an Islamic party. Its leader Erdogan cannot occupy the post of head of government because of a court ban enforced for reciting a poem that was said to incite religious hatred.

Former French president Valéry Giscard D’Estaing, now president of the European Constitutional Convention, said soon after the election results in Turkey that "Turkey is not a European country." Several political leaders, especially in France and Germany, have taken similar positions.

Former Socialist foreign minister Hubert Védrine also opposed Turkey’s membership of the EU, arguing that "for mere geographic reasons, we have to trace the borders were Europe stops."

About 98 per cent of Turkey’s 68 million people are Muslim. But other than the Muslim character of the Turkish society, French opposition to Turkey’s entry into the EU arises from other interests.

Turkey has refused so far to give up its claims to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, divided between a Greek south and a Turkish north, despite pressure from the EU and the United Nations.

France fears also that the 68-million Turkish population which is growing faster than the EU population, would further reduce French weight in the EU. France has a population of 61 million and its representative powers have been diluted already after the reunification of Germany in 1992 which raised its population from 62 million to 80 million.

The Christian Social Union (CSU) in Germany voted for rejection of Turkey’s membership of the EU at a party convention last Sunday. The Christian Democratic Union, another conservative party, supported the rejection through its general secretary Angela Merkel, present at the CSU congress.

Edmund Stoiber, conservative candidate for the post of Chancellor in the parliamentary elections in September said during the party meeting: "The European Union is based on Western values. EU membership of Turkey would destroy these values." The Social-Democrat government in Germany has made no commitment to Turkey over its claims.

Erdogan says that "only Germany is still hesitating, and all other leaders have expressed their support for Turkey."

POLITICS-EUROPE: Turkey Knocks on EU Doors Again

By Julio Godoy Reprint | | Print |

Julio Godoy

PARIS, Nov 28 2002 (IPS) - The European tour by Turkish leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan raises old questions again whether Turkey can ever be a part of Europe.
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