Turkey and the EU

An Awkward Candidate for EU Membership?

Harun Arikan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351877305
• Edition: 2
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: International Relations
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The relationship between Turkey and the European Union is an important issue in European integration. With the EU beginning accession talks with Turkey, this is a vital moment for the future as the EU deals with a central question that has been on the agenda for over forty years: Turkey's membership. Since the first edition, EU-Turkey relations have clearly taken different directions. There have been considerable developments in Greek-Turkish relations, the Cyprus issue, the domestic politics of Turkey including human rights and the protection of minorities, and the changing security environment post-9/11. Furthermore, recent enlargement has been an important turning point for the EU. This extended and revised edition addresses these major developments and assesses the implications of Turkish membership for the current EU structures. The book is a timely addition to the existing literature for students and academics of European and Middle Eastern Studies.

Chapter 1

Introduction: An Alternative Approach to Traditional Perspectives of EU-Turkish Relations

The subject of Turkish membership will most likely be one of the most contentious themes on the agenda of the European Union¹ in the years to come. There appears to have been positive developments in EU-Turkey relations in recent years. In October 2005, the European Union started the accession negotiation with Turkey. This is a groundbreaking event in the long history of the EU-Turkey relations. A close, special relationship is now being built in a constructive manner and with the long-term prospect of EU membership. Yet, The EU has exclusively underlined an ‘open-ended’ nature of accession negotiations, ‘outcomes of which cannot be guaranteed before hand’. Therefore, the question of as to whether EU membership will be the final outcome of the negotiations for Turkey still unclear and thus remains to be seen in the foreseeable future.

From the very beginnings of the creation of the European Union, Turkey has shown a keen interest in the integration process in Europe and, indeed, has considered becoming a member of the EU to be a logical consequence of its modernization and Westernization policies (Eralp, 1992, 1993). Consequently, Turkey applied for associate membership in 1959 and went on to sign the Ankara Agreement with the EU in 1963, an agreement which not only recognized Turkey’s eligibility for to participate in European integration but explicitly envisaged Turkey’s eventual full membership of the EU (Aybak, 1995).

EU-Turkey relations have, however, experienced serious difficulties resulting from the essential incompatibility of both parties’ policies with the declared objectives of their Association Agreement (Ugur, 1999). In particular, it seems unlikely that the ultimate objective of the Association Agreement – Turkish accession to the EU – will be achieved in the foreseeable future. On the one hand, this is because the EU has always considered Turkey to be an awkward candidate for EU membership: Turkey is different, problematic and thus, by implication, a more difficult case than any of the other applicants. The EU’s skepticism towards the prospect of Turkish membership can be seen in its policies, which have basically sought to maintain and strengthen the existing Association Agreement. However, this has been inadequate to prepare Turkey for EU membership. In fact, the EU has developed an alternative approach towards Turkey, which can best be described as a containment strategy, designed to delay indefinitely the prospect of membership while anchoring Turkey in the European structure through a close relations.

On the other hand, Turkey’s failure to undertake the necessary policy reforms to meet requirements for EU membership has, to some extent, enabled the EU to legitimize its hard policy stance towards Turkey’s membership. The lack of progress in improving its human rights regime, its rigid and uncompromising policy stance towards Greece over the bilateral issues and its inadequacy in aligning its economic system with the EU have not only increased the EU’s concern about the eligibility of Turkey as a candidate state, but also have undermined Turkey’s own efforts to strengthen its own motivation and commitment to achieving EU membership (Ugur, 1999).

The objective of this book is to analyze the development of the EU’s policy towards Turkey against the backdrop of this long-standing and problematic relationship and with particular reference to the next enlargement of the EU. The following chapters examine the main policy issues between the EU and Turkey and analyze the ways in which the parties have approached to these issues. In order to avoid mere assertion, the study analyzes the EU’s policy towards Turkey from a comparative perspective and compares the EU’s approach to the issues in the EUTurkey relationship with that adopted with regard to the other applicant countries. From this perspective, the book investigates the extent to which the EU’s policy instruments and its containment strategy for Turkey have been compatible with its overall enlargement objectives and with how the EU’s enlargement policy has been operationalised for other applicant states.

The objectives of the EU’s enlargement policy are to support the democratization process and to facilitate economic and institutional reforms in applicant countries, which are all necessary for the stability of Europe. Therefore, the EU has guided, catalyzed, and even directed the process of political, economic, legal and social reform in the applicant countries in Central and Eastern Europe (the CEECs) by offering them a clear prospect of membership and an accession strategy (Ram, 1999, 2001). Indeed, by offering economic and political benefits through pre-accession strategies and by stipulating membership requirements, the EU has greatly influenced the domestic policy choices in these applicant states; this has allowed it to affect even permanent institution building, and to encourage specific political and legal reforms in these countries (Ram, 1999). However, the EU has been reluctant to apply the same enlargement policy instruments and accession commitment to Turkey. Although Turkey’s failure to undertake the necessary policy reforms to meet requirements for EU membership has provided some grounds for the latter’s hesitation towards Turkey’s membership, it cannot provide sufficient reasons why Turkey has been treated differently from the other applicant countries as they have a similar problems.

Therefore, this study argues that Turkey has been treated differently, compared to other applicant countries for EU membership. Furthermore, the EU’s containment policy towards Turkey has lacked the clarity and certainty that would have best encouraged and facilitated Turkey’s efforts to adjust its policies to make them compatible with EU membership. As a result, the EU’s role in hastening Turkey’s attempts to align her political, economic and social system with EU norms has been less effective than it might have been and, indeed, has been in other applicant countries in a similar situation.

Critical Review of the Existing Literature on EU-Turkey Relations

The existing literature on EU-Turkey relations suggests that there are problems for both Western and Turkish studies in explaining the problematic nature of EUTurkey relations. In other words, there is a standard framework within which EUTurkey relations and especially the Turkish case for accession to the EU has been addressed by both Turkish and Western studies (Ugur, 1996). The literature on the subject is excessively rigid antiquated and opinionated, thereby reflecting only the stylized version of both Turkey and the EU’s official approaches to issues between Turkey and the EU. That is, the Turkish literature and Western literature on EUTurkey relations present the Turkish ‘standard view’ and the EU’s ‘standard view’ respectively. The Western studies, in which Turkish sources were rarely used, have heavily relied on the official documents of the EU and, as a result, they cannot avoid reflecting the official position of the EU. This has clearly been the case with Turkey’s accession to the EU: in particular, they suggest that economic, political and cultural issues work against Turkey, thought security issues work in her favour. Therefore, on balance, Turkey cannot join the EU, but the EU still needs to keep Turkey onside within a containment policy.

As regards standard Turkish views, they have tended to reflect the Turkish governments’ position with regard to policy issues in EU-Turkey relations, while differing in the details. They basically criticize the EU on the grounds that the EU’s policy towards Turkey has been not compatible with the declared ultimate objectives of the EU-Turkey Association Agreement. However, in their analysis, a critical approach to Turkey’s slow progress in aligning its political and economic system with EU norms can rarely be seen.

Another weakness of the existing literature on EU-Turkey relations is that both Turkish and Western analyses seem to have been descriptive in character, identifying the policy issues in turn without providing a detailed analysis of the nature of the problems (Ugur, 1996). To be precise, they have provided a general overview of EU-Turkey relations, and have failed to provide a convincing argument based on evidence as to why the EU has been reluctant to offer the prospect of accession to Turkey. Although both Turkish and Western analyses have offered economic, political security and the cultural framework to explain the EU’s reluctant policy approach towards Turkey’s membership, they seem to have lacked any analytical basis for their arguments.

Having underlined the shortcomings of the existing literature, this book, as an alternative approach, seeks to analyze EU-Turkey relations within a broader framework. This is done in two stages:

• First, a norm for the EU’s enlargement policy is developed which looks at motives and criteria for accession, thus providing an analytical framework for examining EU-Turkey relations;

• Second a comparison is made of the EU’s policy towards Turkey with that towards the other applicant countries by examining the EU’s approaches to similar policy issues that arise in the context of enlargement. Comparing the EU’s policy approaches in these different cases provides evidence as to whether or not Turkish application to join the EU has been treated differently.

Methodology

Given that there is a standard framework within which EU-Turkey relations and, specifically, the issues identified as obstacles to Turkey’s prospects for accession, have been addressed in the existing literature, the primary objective of this book is to contribute to this existing literature on EU-Turkey relations by using a different approach to analyze EU-Turkey relations in general and EU enlargement in particular. It seeks to construct a more comprehensive framework by examining the Turkish case not merely on an individual costs/benefits basis in isolation from the other factors but the basis of a comparison with other applicant countries, in order to assess whether Turkey has been treated differently. As a first step in this procedure, the study identifies the EU’s motivation and interests in continuing to enlarge, as well as its policy instruments in order to ‘characterize’ the EU’s enlargement policy process. This provides an analytical framework in which to set the EU’s approach to the policy issues it has identified in the Turkish case and to compare this with its approach to similar issues in other applicant countries. It also provides a more appropriate setting in which to assess not only whether the EU’s policy towards Turkey has been compatible with its enlargement objectives in general, but also whether it has allowed the EU to exert influence on the development of Turkey’s internal policy effectively, and to promote and accelerate Greco-Turkish rapprochement.

It is perhaps helpful to begin by clarifying difference between the concept of inclusion in ‘the EU’s enlargement policy process’ and the concept of inclusion in ‘the accession process of negotiations’. This clarification of difference between the two processes appears to be important for the purpose of this study, as the scope of this book is limited to analyze EU-Turkish relations in EU’s enlargement policy process and thus, an analysis as regards prospect of Turkey’s inclusion in the accession negotiation process is beyond the objective of this study. The inclusion in the enlargement process refers to a strategy which might lead to the stage of the accession negotiations process through meeting the criteria for accession. More specifically, the EU’s enlargement policy process is a strategy designed to prepare the applicants for a later accession negotiations process through an appropriate strategy with accession credibility, providing a considerable degree of influence and financial and institutional support during the transformation process in the applicant countries. However, an inclusion in the enlargement policy process does not necessarily mean that the included applicant will automatically go on to the stage of the accession negotiation process. The inclusion of candidate countries in the accession negotiation process depends upon a number of variables, including the process of the applicant towards meeting the accession criteria and capacity of the EU to enlarge.

To test the arguments of the study further, the security factor, human rights and Greco-Turkish disputes were chosen as specific policy issues in the EUTurkish relationship for detailed analysis. The reasons for choosing the last two of these were: firstly, the EU has cited them as reasons why Turkey is different and problematic and by implication a more difficult case than other applicants; and secondly, given that most applicant countries have similar problems (i.e., an inadequate human rights system, lack of protection for minorities and border issues between them and other applicant countries), these two issues are useful for a comparison with the EU’s approach to similar policy issues in the other applicant countries. The security factor also features in both EU-Turkey and EU-the CEECs relations and provides another appropriate case study by allowing the EU’s policy towards the CEECs in this area to be contrasted with its policy of ‘containment’ towards Turkey.

In order to support the arguments with the evidence and avoid simply making assertions, primary source material was used in this study as much as possible. Specifically, the official documents of the EU, namely, the Commission’s reports, a number of EP resolutions and declarations of the Council of Ministers, as well as official documents and official statements issued by a number of political actors in Turkey were used to support the arguments of the book. The interpretations of the primary (and the supporting secondary) source materials were backed up by a series of interviews conducted with officials of the EU and of Turkey.²

The Organization of the Book

The central focus of the book is the development of the EU’s policy towards Turkey, with particular reference to enlargement. It examines the major policy issues and differences between the EU and Turkey and analyzes how both sides have approached these issues. Thus, chapter 2 of the book seeks to conceptualize the EU’s enlargement policy, which involves considering the EU’s motivation, interests and subsequent choice of policy instruments for dealing with the complexity of the next enlargement in order to develop a general model of how the EU approaches enlargement. This conceptualization is useful because it provides:

• A general framework for looking at the enlargement;

• A framework for looking at the specific example of Turkey;

• A framework for comparing between the EU’s policy vis-à-vis Turkey and its policy towards other applicant countries.

Chapter 3 assesses the objectives and instruments of the EU-Turkish Association and investigates the reasons why the Association Agreement of Ankara has not achieved its political and economic objectives. It also makes reference to the EU’s new association policy towards the CEECs and compares the instruments of the Europe Agreements and Ankara Agreement in the context of enlargement policy. On the basis of this, chapter 3 explores two main questions: whether the instruments of the EU- Turkey Association have been inadequate to serve as a useful preparatory phase for Turkey’s accession to the EU and whether the EU’s association policy towards Turkey has been different from its association policy towards the CEECs?

Chapter 4 examines economic instruments of the EU’s policy for Turkey in a comparative perspective with the CEECs. It considers whether the instruments of EU’s pre-accession instruments, including, the customs union, European Strategy for Turkey and Accession Partnership Document, have been appropriate for Turkey to prepare her for accession. Considering that the customs union constituted the central part of the EU’s containment policy for Turkey, this chapter evaluates both the EU’s and Turkey’s motivations and interests in completing the customs union and tries to answer the question whether the customs union is best considered as part of Turkey’s new strategy for membership in the long term, or whether it is part of the EU’s differentiation policy vis-à-vis Turkey in the context of enlargement (or possibly both)? The contents and characteristics of the EU’s policy instruments are closely examined, and their contribution to the readiness of Turkey to participate in EU policies is compared to the EU’s policy towards the CEECs to prepare them for coping with the EU’s single market and other aspects of EU membership. To summarize, the basic purpose of this chapter is to try and assess whether the EU’s overall policy stance and use of policy instruments towards Turkey (since she declared her wish to became a full member of the EU) has been comprehensive enough to support the process of Turkish integration into the Union.

Chapters 5 and 6 are devoted to analyzing the two of the main policy issues between Turkey and the EU in the enlargement context, namely Turkey’s human rights regime and the Greco-Turkish disputes. As already indicated, these two issues were chosen because the EU...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• 1 Introduction: An Alternative Approach to Traditional Perspectives of EU-Turkish Relations
• 2 Conceptualizing the EU’s Enlargement Policy: Motivations, Conditions and Instruments for the EU’s Enlargement Policy
• 3 The EU-Turkey Association: A Flawed Instrument?
• 4 Economic Instruments of the EU’s Policy for Turkey in a Comparative Perspective with the CEECs
• 5 The Political Aspects of the EU’s Policy Towards Turkey in the Context of a New European Political Order
• 6 The Greek Factor: The Ultimate Obstacle to Turkish Membership?
• 7 Security Aspects of the EU’s Relations with Turkey
• 8 Containment Policy Reconsidered: Preparing the Ground for Membership in the Long Run?
• 9 Conclusions
• Bibliography
• Index