Turkey's Road to European Union Membership

National Identity and Political Change

Susannah Verney, Kostas Ifantis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781317990833
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politique et relations internationales
• Subtopic: Politique

Enlargement to Turkey is arguably the greatest challenge facing the European Union today. After the narrowly averted "train crash" over Cyprus in 2006, the second election victory of the Justice and Development Party in July 2007 opened new prospects for Turkish-EU relations. But in an EU emphasising a collective identity based on shared civilisational values, Turkey's European credentials have been increasingly called into question. Amending national identity through political change has become the key to the success or failure of the Turkish integration project. This volume examines the EU role in strengthening the domestic pro-reform coalition within Turkey, the paradox - and potential limits - of Turkey's europeanising Islamists, and the impact of Europeanisation through conditionality, including a case study of Turkish policy towards the Cyprus Question. Also addressed are the Western stereotypes of Turkish identity influencing the country's EU prospects, notably concerning the role of Islam in precipitating acts of political violence and its association with sexual and political violence in the discourse of European opponents of Turkish accession. Finally, the dynamics of EU accession negotiations are analysed and the potential role of a norm-driven rhetorical strategy in promoting Turkish accession as a moral and democratic imperative is discussed.

National identity and political change on Turkey’s road to EU membership

SUSANNAH VERNEY

Reluctant partners

Turkey’s long march to European Union began almost 50 years ago. In July 1959, Turkey became only the second non-founder member of the then EEC to ask to participate in the European integration process, submitting its application for an Association just weeks after Greece. The Ankara Agreement, signed in 1963, inaugurated economic integration between Turkey and the EEC while leaving Turkey outside the political decision-making process. From the start, the Turkish relationship with the EEC was framed in a prospect of eventual full membership. Thus, according to Article 28 of the Association,

As soon as the operation of the Agreement has advanced far enough to justify envisaging full acceptance by Turkey of the obligations arising out of the Treaty establishing the Community, the Contracting Parties shall examine the possibility of the accession of Turkey to the Community.

This was reinforced by the preamble to the Agreement, which stated that

the support given by the European Economic Community to the efforts of the Turkish people to improve their standard of living will facilitate the accession of Turkey to the Community at a later date.

Despite this apparent statement of intent, another 41 years were to pass before Turkey opened negotiations for accession to what was by then the European Union. In the meantime, five successive Enlargements had resulted in 19 other states gaining full membership ahead of Turkey (followed by another two states in 2007). This long delay can be attributed to reluctance on both sides.

In the 1970s, it was Turkey which was the hesitant partner. The Association Agreement had become the object of growing domestic criticism, as industrialists feared a move away from a national economic development strategy based on import substitution. A particular cause of contention was the limits on Turkish textile imports unilaterally imposed by the EC in 1978. Meanwhile, there had been unrealistic expectations of EC aid, with the Turkish government requesting $8 billion, when the EC was prepared to offer $600 million.¹ Disappointment with the EC was aggravated by the opening of accession negotiations with Greece, with which Turkey was engaged in a series of bilateral disputes in the Aegean. The Turkish government regarded the Greek accession application as ‘a political act aimed at getting a new international platform against Turkey’.² Rather than seeking closer ties with the EC to balance the Greek factor, the Turkish response was to move away from the relationship. In October 1978 the Ecevit government imposed a unilateral freeze on the Association, reneging on the commitment to proceed to the next round of tariff cuts.

Although the Turkish side rapidly changed its mind and began seriously to consider applying for full membership,³ the military coup of 12 September 1980 effectively ruled this out. In January 1982 the Association was officially suspended by the EC following a vote in the European Parliament. Even after the Turkish parliamentary elections of 1983 restored a civilian government (with a military president), another three years were to pass before the Association Agreement began to operate again, with an Association Council meeting held at ambassadorial level in 1986. As a result, it was not until 1987 that the Turkish government finally submitted its accession application—12 years after Greece and 10 years after Spain and Portugal.

On the other side, Heinz Kramer notes that ‘one can easily come to the conclusion that the EC and its member states did not undertake strong efforts to make the Ankara Agreement and the Additional Protocol a success’.⁴ Apart from the textiles issue, he points particularly to the EC’s failure to meet its commitment under the Association Agreement to ‘progressively securing free movement of workers’,⁵ to the different interpretations which the two sides had concerning the promised harmonization of agricultural policy, and to the difficulties in ratifying financial aid to Turkey. The Greek Association, which included many similar terms to the Ankara Agreement, faced similar difficulties.

When it came to the Turkish accession application, EC reluctance was even more pronounced. It took over two and a half years before the European Commission issued its Opinion. The latter was negative on two grounds. First, the Commission stated that it would be ‘unwise’ to start new accession negotiations at a time when the Single European Act had only recently come into force and the Community was still digesting the previous Enlargement. Second, it declared that the political and economic situation in Turkey meant that ‘it would not be useful to open accession negotiations with Turkey straight away’. Instead, it put off all discussion of Enlargement until 1993 ‘at the earliest’.

When 1993 came, the European Union began negotiations with the four EFTA states, Austria, Finland, Norway and Sweden, while encouraging Turkey to apply for completion of the customs union envisaged under the Association as a first major step towards closer relations. By the time the customs union agreement was finalized in 1995, eight Central and East European states (CEECs) had applications on the table, joining Cyprus and Malta which had applied in 1990. At the Luxembourg summit in 1997, at which the European Council decided to open negotiations with selected applicants, Turkey was not even recognized as a candidate but simply declared ‘eligible for membership’. It was not until Helsinki in 1999, 12 years after the Turkish government had submitted its application, that Turkey was accorded official candidate status. Another five years were to pass before negotiations began, by which time the Fifth Enlargement had already brought Cyprus, Malta and eight CEECs into the EU.

Turkey’s entry talks are expected to be singularly long and hard; already, leading EU politicians have suggested that they may not end in full EU membership. A major obstacle to Turkish accession is clearly the EU’s capacity to integrate Turkey. This is a multi-facetted problem, presupposing a major overhaul of the EU’s institutional structures, major policies and budget. Essentially, an EU which has prepared to integrate Turkey is likely to be a rather different entity from the Union which we know today. However, the changes that will be required on the part of the EU are only one side of the story. The other concerns the changes that will be required from Turkey.

Redefining Turkey

Looking back to 1963, it is clear that while the Ankara Agreement had foreseen eventual full Turkish membership, this had always been envisaged in a rather long term perspective. Entry would take place at some indefinite future date following the completion of the customs union. But with the passage of time and the evolution of the integration process, the rules of the Enlargement game changed. In the era when the Ankara Agreement was signed, the only criterion specified for applicant countries was that they should be ‘European’.⁶ At the official ceremony to sign the Turkish Association, European Commission President Walter Hallstein unequivocally declared Turkey to be part of Europe. Subsequently, there has been much less certainty about this.

Turkey’s strategic significance during the Cold War had encouraged its definition as ‘European’, facilitating its admission to such European entities as the Organization for European Economic Coordination and the Council of Europe, as well as its Association with the EC and the eventual membership prospect that it was offered in the early 1960s. But since then, the definition of ‘European’ has shifted, acquiring a strong normative content. In parallel with its continual economic deepening and the acquisition of an ever broader public policy remit, the European integration project has, since at least the early 1970s, sought to develop a collective identity based on shared civilisational values. Central to this has been what has been described as the ‘democratic tradition’ of European integration: an image of the EC\EU and its member-states as the repository of a historic tradition of devotion to democracy.⁷ Perhaps the classic expression of this idea was the Laeken Declaration of December 2001, which proclaimed Europe to be ‘the continent of humane values, the Magna Carta, the Bill of Rights, the French Revolution and the fall of the Berlin Wall’, with its ‘one boundary’ being ‘democracy and human rights’.⁸

This ‘democratic tradition’ has found concrete expression in the growing emphasis on democracy as a criterion for membership, initially proposed by the European Parliament in 1962, first put into practice with the sanctions imposed on the dictatorships in Greece in 1967 and Turkey in 1982, and formally consolidated with the official entry criteria established at Copenhagen in 1993. Subsequently, adherence to democratic standards has been prioritized over all other criteria for EU membership. Thus, states are required sufficiently to meet the political criteria before opening entry negotiations. In contrast, the other criteria—even that of a fully functioning market economy—only need to be fulfilled before accession. This prioritization reflects the fact that democracy is more than a formal entry requirement: it has come to be regarded as a fundamental proof of a state’s European identity.

With the growing emphasis on democracy as the primary defining characteristic of a European state, Turkey’s classification in this category came increasingly into question. Turkey’s image has not corresponded with the democratic European ideal. The country’s relations with the EC were set back three times by military coups, in 1960, 1971 and 1980. Then, just a decade ago, in 1997, in an era when Turkey was actively seeking EU membership, a ‘postmodern’ military intervention, not involving bloodshed, led to the fall of an Islamist government opposed by the military. At other periods the military has continued to play an influential role in politics, which has been institutionalized through its participation in the National Security Council. This is clearly not compatible with contemporary West European expectations of civilian control over the military and the latter’s absence from political life. At the same time, there has been a constant stream of international criticism concerning inadequate respect of human and minority rights and fundamental political freedoms in Turkey.

Then in the 1980s a new element was added to the picture. The growing international concern with the rise of Islamic fundamentalism across a broad geographic region encompassing Central Asia, the Middle East and north Africa,⁹ began to influence perceptions of Turkey. Even before Samuel Huntington formulated his famous ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis,¹⁰ the fact that Turkish society is predominantly Muslim gained a new and negative prominence in discussion of Turkey’s relations with the EC. The result was a much stronger emphasis on Turkey as culturally ‘Other’. This included a focus on the historical past—particularly the Ottoman past with images of the Turks hammering on the gates of Vienna—rather than on the postwar political constellation which had led to Turkey’s recognition as part of ‘Europe’. Inevitably, the approaching end of the Cold War downgraded the importance of the immediate postwar view of Turkey as ‘European’. Instead, there was a new focus on the country’s relations with the Middle East, which in turn reinforced the emphasis on the country’s Muslim identity.

For many Europeans, a key element of the latter concerns gender roles. The issue of the headscarf has proved particularly potent in West European perceptions, serving as the symbolic expression of a disadvantaged role for women in Islamic society. Particularly through the issues of the rights of women and minorities, Turkish identity has, in the minds of many Europeans, become negatively linked with democracy and human rights. Meanwhile, after the attacks on the World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001 and particularly after the London bombings of July 2005, an additional negative ingredient has been the association so frequently made between terrorism and Islam.

Thus, a key issue for Turkey on its road to the European Union is how to change the country’s image, so that its national identity is seen as compatible with European ideas of democracy and rights—and hence of European identity. Like all post-1993 applicants for EU entry, Turkey has to conform to the political criteria of Copenhagen,¹¹ with its compliance subject to European Commission surveillance and recorded in annual monitoring reports. But in the Turkish case, it will not be sufficient to convince European Commission officials that political change has been substantive. It will also be necessary to persuade a broader European public that the Turkish reality does not correspond to the prevailing stereotypes.

While in the case of previous Enlargements, the debate was essentially contained as a narrow discourse among strong publics, the Turkish candidacy has already become the subject of broader public discussion. The controversy around the Turkish case has occurred in the context of the developing debate on the EU’s democratic legitimacy. The latter, having entered a new phase after the Maastricht referendums in 1992, gained further impetus with the 2005 Constitutional Treaty debacle. The Chirac legacy—the new French condition that all future EU Enlargement be endorsed by a national referendum—means that at the end of the accession negotiations, it will be necessary for the French public, at least, to be convinced to vote for Turkish entry. And the French constitutional requirement may be only the first step in the opening up of the EU Enlargement process to a broader range of veto players. Even if the public in other member-states is not given a direct opportunity to endorse Turkish accession, it seems likely that negative public opinion will influence national decision-makers, particularly now that the elitist character of the integration project has become so clearly contested.

And in the case of Enlargement to Turkey, public opinion to date has indeed been negative. The autumn 2006 Eurobarometer survey found that while 46% of respondents across the EU supported further Enlargement, only 28% thought the EU should admit Turkey while 59% were against.¹² In a study based on Eurobarometer data, A. Ruiz-Jiménez and J. I. Torreblanca found that opposition to Turkish membership was mainly connected with identity-related arguments. As they noted, ‘the more the identity dimension figures in public debate and attitudes towards Turkey, the more probable it is that support will be low’.¹³ Strikingly, in the autumn 2006 EB, almost two-thirds of respondents (61%) felt the cultural differences between Turkey and the EU to be too significant to allow for accession. Meanwhile, an overwhelming majority (85%) felt that Turkey’s accession should be dependent on its systematic respect for human rights.¹⁴

The challenge for the next Turkish governments is therefore immense. Achieving EU entry will require nothing less than a reclassification of Turkey to fit the contemporary definition of ‘European’. This presupposes a radical shift in external perceptions of the country’s national identity, with Turkey acquiring a ‘European’ image as a democratic state with full respect for rights. A central element of this image shift will be to prove that Islam and democracy can be compatible. If this can be done, even if Turkey’s accession process suffers a setback—due, for example, to the opposition of the current French President or any other EU politician—it will become very hard for the EU and its member-states to justify keeping Turkey outside the EU indefinitely. Such an argument would lack moral legitimacy. Excluding a candidate which had met all the membership criteria and fully established its credentials as a European state—especially if it had passed through a long process of negotiation and monitoring in order to do so—would dramatically damage the credibility of the Union, not to mention that of any future Enlargement prospect.

Political change and national identity

It is for this reason that this special issue has focused on the questions of national identity and political change: because these are considered the key to the success or failure of the Turkish integration project. The first four articles in this collection focus on the process of domestic reform, which began after the Helsinki decision to recognise Turkey as a candidate in 1999 and gained major momentum with the election of the AKP government in 2002.

Kostas Ifantis, outlining the context in which the process of political change in Turkey is unfolding, describes the present juncture as ‘a time of peril’. Externally, almost two decades after the end of the Cold War, the relationship between Turkey and the West still lacks a sense of direction. Meanwhile, the shifting regional balance, of which the war in Iraq is just one aspect, contains inherent threats to Turkish security. Domestically, with the election of the AKP in 2002, the country appears to have br...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• Contributors
• 1 National identity and political change on Turkey’s road to EU membership
• 2 Turkey in transition—opportunities amidst peril?
• 3 Running around in circles? The cyclical relationship between Turkey and the European Union
• 4 Conservative globalists versus defensive nationalists: political parties and paradoxes of Europeanisation in Turkey
• 5 Europeanisation through EU conditionality: understanding the new era in Turkish foreign policy
• 6 Religiosity and protest behaviour: the case of Turkey in comparative perspective
• 7 Turkish identity on the road to the EU: basic elements of French and German oppositional discourses
• 8 The dynamics of EU accession: Turkish travails in comparative perspective
• 9 Europeanisation and the transformation of Turkey’s Cyprus policy: a case of democratic peace?
• Index