The dating game: Turkey, Europe and the American matchmaker

National Interest, The, Spring, 2004 by Zeyno Baran

THIS YEAR is make-or-break for Turkish-EU relations. After forty years of being kept at arm's length--albeit with promises of an eventual full embrace--Turkey wants the EU to commit to beginning accession talks at its December summit. All the parties--Ankara, Brussels and Washington--know the deadline and the issues that need to be resolved for this to happen. But if at the end of this year Turkey does not receive a date to commence negotiations, the consequences could be severe. It could spell the end of the reform process in Turkey, severely damage the cohesion of the transatlantic alliance, and seriously jeopardize plans to implement the generational transformation of the Greater Middle East.

Moving Goalposts

TURKEY IS understandably mistrustful of European Union pronouncements about "eventual" membership. Ever since the Ankara Agreement in 1963, when France's President Charles de Gaulle told the Turks that they deserved to join the EU queue, Turkey has been "next in line" to join Europe--even when other states have jumped ahead of them. The great fear is that once the Union increases its size to 25 member-states in 2004, enthusiasm for admitting further members will wane. Realistically, this could be the last round of enlargement for many years to come. Does Turkey deserve to wait another ten or 15 years to enter Europe together with, say, Albania and Bosnia?

The initial excitement over Turkey's Customs Union with the EU in 1995 was followed with a serious disappointment at the EU's 1997 Luxembourg summit, when Turkey was not given candidate status. In reaction to this perceived snub, Turkey cut off political dialogue with Brussels. Under strong pressure from the United States, and in recognition of Turkey's own progress in implementing reforms, Turkey was finally given candidate status at the 1999 Helsinki summit and promised that, once it met the so-called Copenhagen criteria, membership talks would commence. (1)

After assessing Turkey's progress, the conclusion reached at the December 2002 Copenhagen summit was:

   If the European Council in December 2004,
   on the basis of a report and a recommendation
   from the Commission, decides that
   Turkey fulfills the Copenhagen political criteria,
   the European Union will open accession
   negotiations with Turkey without delay.

Turkey, upset at receiving an unclear date, felt once more that the EU had snubbed them--despite the best efforts of the United States to put a positive spin on the declaration by interpreting "without delay" to mean that accession talks would commence in early 2005.

The ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan decided to embark on a fresh and ambitious reform program to remove any doubt that Turkey would be in compliance with the Copenhagen criteria. (2) The Erdogan government's efforts were highly praised by many European leaders; during his January 2004 visit to Ankara, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, declared, "We stand by Turkey since it has achieved considerable progress" in its bid for full EU membership.

Yet many Turks who believed that their country was getting closer to Europe now feel that the EU, at its December 2003 Brussels summit, once again moved the goalposts. While recognizing Turkey's push to reform its institutions to European standards, the EU, for the first time, explicitly linked Turkey's candidacy to a successful Cyprus settlement. Indeed, just as Turkey was making progress in political and economic reform, many Turks perceived that the EU was now turning to the Cyprus issue to provide an excuse for keeping Turkey out of the Union.

Encouragingly, there is now momentum for a successful settlement of the Cypriot question. Turkey is serious about seeing this problem resolved before May 1 (when Cyprus is set to enter the EU). Turkey has accepted the proposals advanced by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan; not only will the Annan Plan serve as the basis for a final settlement, Turkey has agreed that if the Greek and Turkish Cypriots cannot resolve outstanding issues by a certain date, Turkey will negotiate directly with Greece in an attempt to reach a resolution. Should Athens and Ankara, in turn, fail to reach consensus, they will accept whatever the Secretary-General proposes to "fill in the blanks."

By helping to facilitate a Cyprus solution, the EU will find it more difficult to resist giving Turkey a date to start accession talks with Ankara. Even if the Annan Plan is ultimately rejected by either Cypriot party in the referenda scheduled for April, Turkey will have acted in good faith to solve the division of the island and can no longer be considered an obstacle for a solution. But if the window of opportunity is lost, there may never be another chance for such high-level and intense international engagement.

The No-Date Worst-Case Scenario

COMMENTING on Russian-American relations in the Winter 2003/04 issue of The National Interest, Dimitri K. Simes rhetorically asked,