Germany Gives Up on Anti-Turkey Stance

Conservative Party in Germany Gives Up on Anti-Turkey Stance

By JUDY DEMPSEY

Published: June 1, 2009

BERLIN — As citizens across Europe prepare to vote this week for a new European Parliament, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s conservative bloc has abandoned its attempt to create a wedge issue out of Turkey’s potential entry into the European Union.

The change in approach is an acknowledgement by conservatives that they have more to gain by appealing to Germany’s 690,000 Turkish voters than by alienating them with blunt talk about the political and cultural differences separating Turkey and the rest of the E.U.

The conservatives view the parliamentary balloting, which starts on Thursday, as a barometer for the federal elections in September and realize that they need every vote they can get if Mrs. Merkel is to be re-elected. Though Mrs. Merkel spoke out against Turkey’s E.U. ambitions as recently as last month, the bloc has since refrained from making Turkey’s entry, or E.U. enlargement in general, a major issue in the campaign.

“The time is over for a Christian Democratic party in Germany to adopt an anti-Turkey campaign,” said Gerhard Hirscher, an analyst at the Hanns Seidel Foundation, which is affiliated with the Christian Social Union, the sister party of Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democrats. “The foreign policy experts in the party have made it clear they do not support the idea of using the European Parliament elections to campaign against Turkey joining the E.U. Turkey is an important country. More importantly, every vote matters in September.”

Turks who have acquired German citizenship are eligible to vote for the European Parliament and in the federal elections.

The softening stance on Turkey in Germany differs from that of several of its European neighbors. In France, Turkey-bashing has become fashionable during campaigning for the European Parliament and starts at the top with President Nicolas Sarkozy, an outspoken opponent of Turkey’s entry to the E.U. In the Netherlands, the director Geert Wilders, whose film “Fitna” features Muslims insulting Islam and the Koran, is using his opposition to Islam to try to get elected to the European Parliament.

The Freedom Party of Austria has a slogan that states, “No to Turkey.” In Bulgaria, which joined the E.U. in January 2007, the nationalist party National Union Attack is using anti-Turkish slogans in its campaign.

Likewise, Mrs. Merkel’s conservative bloc once believed that it could gain political advantage by tapping into a growing disillusionment with enlargement, while also pointing out the costs and difficulty of incorporating a large Muslim country into a mostly Christian grouping. But that stance appears to have given way to political reality. According to the first poll conducted among Germany’s Turks, more than 55 percent of eligible Turkish voters would opt for the Social Democrats if elections were held now, with 23 percent saying that they would vote for the Green Party and only 10 percent selecting Mrs. Merkel’s Christian Democrats and the Christian Social Union.

“The majority of German Turks, who by their fundamental positions are religious and conservative, during elections reward the Social Democrats and the Greens because of their integration policies,” said Joachim Schulte, director of Data 4U, which carried out the survey three months ago.

Though the need for votes may have altered the campaign strategy, it does not seem to have essentially altered Mrs. Merkel’s attitudes toward Turkey. She has consistently advocated a “privileged partnership” for Turkey — meaning that it would be granted substantial benefits but barred from membership, thus denying Turkey the right to vote on E.U. matters. But Mrs. Merkel has never tried to stop E.U. negotiations with Turkey, which opened in 2005.

Her party’s election manifesto for the European Parliament elections specifically mentions that when it comes to meeting the E.U. criteria for membership — including equality between men and women, protection of minorities and freedom of religion — Turkey has “fulfilled” none of these conditions.

“A privileged partnership and not full membership for Turkey in the E.U. is the right solution,” the manifesto states.

Source:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/world/europe/02iht-germany.html?ref=world