written by Jonathan Fryer printable version send your friend

Friday, 13 March 2009

Later this year, Turkey will be celebrating the 10th anniversary of its acceptance as a candidate for membership of the European Union, though in truth at present there is little to celebrate. It is over 20 years since Turkey first formally applied and Ankara has been warned that it could be a decade or more before the country actually joins. Besides, a few current EU member states, such as Austria and France, have indicated that they are not sure Turkish membership is a good thing anyway.

They are wrong. Full and equal membership of the EU will be good for both Europe and Turkey. Economically, the integration of Turkey into the European single market will make the EU a global colossus, a more than effective counterweight to the United States, let alone Japan and most of the major emerging economies. Moreover, the addition of a predominantly young Turkish labour force should be a stimulus to the European economy as it emerges from the current recession, given the ageing of the Union’s population as a whole.

Politically, the potential gains are at least as important. The EU speaks with one voice not only on trade matters, but on global concerns such as climate change and the promotion of European values like democratic government and human rights. An integrated Turkey, clearly committed to the latter, could make the European Union an immense force for good in the eastern Mediterranean and beyond.

The Turkish population and business community will make a substantive leap forward through EU membership, far beyond the benefits of the Customs Union and other EU-Turkey arrangements currently in place. In particular, people in the less developed regions such as eastern Anatolia will see a whole new world of opportunity opened up, not just through migration but more importantly through the creative deployment of EU funds in the poorer regions themselves.

Politically, EU membership should strengthen democracy and human rights inside Turkey. An applicant country has to show that it fulfils stringent political as well as economic conditions in order to qualify - the so-called Copenhagen criteria. Accordingly, the Turkish government has been implementing a whole raft of political as well as economic reforms, from the abolition of the death penalty to the painfully slow but nonetheless significant recognition of minority cultural rights. The firm prospect of EU membership should encourage the continuation and extension of those reforms. Conversely, any undue delay in Turkey’s EU membership - let alone its abandonment - could set back the process of reform catastrophically.

I do not underestimate the challenges ahead for both Turkey and the EU in the years leading up to Turkey’s successful accession. The revelations about aspects of the ’deep state’ that have come about as the murky deeds of the Ergenekon group have become public are testimony to the scale of some of the problems. Moreover, even when laws are changed, it does not mean that they are immediately or successfully implemented. Crucially, there are still areas of the Turkish legal code - not least the notorious Article 301 - and maybe even the Constitution which require further revision.

However, I wonder if some of the opponents of Turkey’s EU membership (who, I am pleased to say, do not include any of the major political parties in Britain) realize the degree to which their negative attitude endangers the process of reform in Turkey and risks reversing a process that has been going on now for 90 years: Turkey’s looking West, rather than East? When these critics mumble about how they want to keep the EU an overwhelmingly Christian society, they clearly do not know their history (or indeed acknowledge the growth of European secularism over the past century!). And when some Austrian burger mutters about the Turks gathered at the gates of Vienna, don’t they realize that the EU’s greatest achievement has been to make friends and partners out of former enemies, be it France and Germany, or the two sides of the former Iron Curtain?

This year sees not just the 10th anniversary of Turkey’s application to join the EU. The country is also celebrating six decades of membership of the Council of Europe, the Strasbourg-based, continent-wide organization that seeks to develop common democratic principles based on the European Convention of Human Rights and other reference texts on the protection of individuals. As one of the earliest members of that organization, as well as of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), Turkey is already half-integrated into the institutional architecture of Europe, as well as into the North Atlantic Alliance, through NATO.

EU membership is the logical and culminating stage of that bonding process and as such should be facilitated and welcomed by all parties involved.

The writer, lecturer and broadcaster Jonathan Fryer is a Vice-President of Liberal International and Number 2 on the Liberal Democrats’ London list for the forthcoming European Parliamentary elections.