Nationalists are well aware that all the main parties are pushing for Turkey to become a full member of the EU, a policy that if implemented could potentially allow millions of Turks to swamp the UK and this would herald the end of Britain as a Christian country.
Fortunately this is unlikely to happen because France and German are strongly against it.
However the question should be asked: do the Turks want to join the EU?
The following is an article printed in Hurriyet, a Turkish newspaper, claiming that Turks are not really keen to join the EU.
Like the UK, the Turkish’ ruling elite is out of touch with the wishes of the people it represents.
Perceptions play a very important role in Turkey’s ties with the
European Union in general and individual EU countries in particular.
Facts do not always bear out these perceptions, of course. But it is
often the latter, and not the former, that count as far as the public
is concerned.
If you sift through the attitudes that the public in France, Austria
or the Netherlands has about Turkey, you will find, more often than
not, that fear has more do with these attitudes than the prevailing
facts. This is why such attitudes often tell us more about the
countries that hold them than they do about Turkey.
But perceptions are things that cut both ways. Turks also have their
perceptions and misperceptions about Europe, which, in turn, tells us
more about Turkey than it does about Europe. Looked at from this
overall perspective, it is clear that the EU is appearing less and
less attractive even for those Turks who believe in the merits of
eventual membership.
Apart from the negative signals concerning Turkey’s EU membership, the
growing feeling is that there is something seriously amiss in Europe,
both politically and economically, that Turks should look at more
closely in trying to chart their future.
No one in their right mind expects the EU to collapse, of course, as a
result of the present economic crisis. There is clearly too much at
stake for that to be allowed to happen. But it is a fact that the
present crisis has placed a dark and heavy cloud over the bloc, and
has brought certain countries, most notably – but not exclusively -
Greece, to what is being termed by the international media as “the
brink of economic collapse.”
Looking at this crisis from the point of view of the man on the
street, it is clear that for all its vast wealth and opportunities,
the EU has been unable to come up with enough regulatory and
infrastructural resources to prevent what is happening today.
While highly understandable to economists who are experts in
retrospective evaluation, this is baffling for laymen in this country,
especially those who have considered EU membership the ultimate
panacea for countries such as Turkey.
Neither do Turks see that the EU’s own basic principles are being
honored today – “Europe’s pacta sunt servanda deficit,” some in Turkey
call it, for obvious reasons – as one country after another puts
national interest above the collective good that the European Union is
supposed to represent.
France, for example, is seen intervening in situations that should be
left to market forces, making financial enticements and threats aimed
at inducing investors in its automotive sector to put their money in
France rather than other EU countries, even if doing so makes less
sense from a business perspective.
Turks also note the increasing griping of average Germans, as
reflected in their popular papers such as Bild. They do not understand
why their taxes should go to save Greeks who – in their remarks, not
mine – “work less and retire earlier than hardworking Germans.” It is
not difficult to imagine this perception spreading to other
self-declared “hardworking members of the EU.”
It is equally incomprehensible for Turks that an EU country such as
Greece should now be accused angrily by its partners of “cooking the
books for years,” and “lying to the EU about its statistics.” This
automatically begs some highly obvious questions.
For example, even if the Greeks were doing this, where was the EU and
its monitoring mechanisms to prevent it from happening? And if the
Greeks were getting away with all of this, what about the other PIIGS
- as Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece and Spain, all facing serious
economic crises now – have come to be known, somewhat unkindly, in
Europe?
Neither do Turks see an “EU of equals” anymore. Instead they observe
that the citizens of some member states are considered third-class
citizens of the bloc, especially with respect to getting a job and
settling in other member state, a freedom that is supposedly at the
core of the EU’s basic philosophy.
But it’s not just in the economic sphere that things appear amiss. It
is also clear, looking back over the past 20 years, that despite all
its efforts, the EU has been unable to come up with a coherent and
unified foreign and defense policy, making it next to useless when it
comes to such major international crises as the one that erupted in
Yugoslav or the Iraq wars.
Some EU diplomats in Ankara openly bemoan now the appointment of a
“non-entity” (their term, not mine) as the EU’s foreign minister,
someone who, according to them, “could not even act on Haiti in time.”
Judging by some press reports coming out of Europe, it is not even
clear – despite all that is being said – that the EU will be able to
come up with a strong unified position on Iran, given the differing -
and, in some cases, very large – economic interests that individual EU
members have in that country.
As we said at the start, perceptions and facts are intertwined here,
with the former playing the predominant role as far as public
attitudes are concerned. It is nevertheless a fact for those who try
to follow European affairs more closely that the EU can not be the
same after all this.
Once its economic crisis is over, it is obvious that there will be
more concentration on “deepening” the European Union institutionally
in order to try and ensure that some of the serious shortcomings that
are now surfacing will be overcome. In other words, “enlargement, ”
apart from that which has been promised politically – as in the case
of Croatia – can be expected to be pushed to the back burner.
This deepening process will clearly be a painful and acrimonious one
within the bloc, and one that does not portend well for Turkey’s
potential EU membership either. Given its latest attempts to interfere
in Cyprus, with a view toward putting pressure on the Turkish side -
even if it is not the side that spoiled the only real chance of a
settlement in 2003 – one can expect the EU to be even less attractive
for the average Turk.
It must be said, though, that just like the EU is not going to
“collapse” as a result of what is going on, Turkey is not going to
give up on its EU accession simply because the bloc appears less
attractive to Turks.
Ankara will continue to go through the motions required, at least to
the extent that its national interest allows in the face of what
Europeans have called its “open-ended bid for EU membership.”
Of course, if Europe decided to play fair with Turkey, this could all
change rapidly, but for the average Turk, this appears highly unlikely
from today’s perspective. Ankara will continue, therefore, to go
through the motions until such time as the EU can come up with a
collective position that says “no” to Turkey.
Whether this position of Turkey’s represents “a continuing sincere
commitment to the EU perspective” or contains a grain of
vindictiveness, whereby Ankara is saying, “I will not give you the
pleasure of seeing me pull back my application for membership,” is an
open question.
The bottom line is that while the EU is changing in the face of “force
majeure” developments, so are Turkey and the attitude of Turks toward
the EU. But whether this will ultimately provide succor for those in
Europe who would like to see Ankara give up on the EU is highly
doubtful.
It seems, therefore, that Europe is stuck with Turkey, and the reverse
is also true, even if it is clear that Ankara is also trying to
increase its options by opening up to different parts of the world in
order to reduce its dependence on an unwelcoming and hostile EU.
To put a long story short, the EU all of a sudden seems much less
attractive for Turks than it might have been a few years ago.
GIUSEPPE DE SANTIS
