Turkish Forum

Category: France

  • Euro vs. dollar

    Euro vs. dollar

    EurovsDollar

    © Photo: SXC.hu

    France is preparing a full-scale reform of the world financial system. Paris, which is chairing the G20 at present, is suggesting lowering the clout of the dollar, abandoning currency and trade wars, and focusing on economic cooperation.

    This is not the first initiative of the French authorities for radical reform of the financial system. Paris is practically the main critic of the European Central Bank’s policies and opponent of a strong Euro which is hitting national exports. This time, French Minister of Finance Christine Lagarde has put forward the idea of reforming the world financial system so as to rule out the possibility of the authorities of different countries manipulating currency rates. Dmitry Smyslov, an expert from the Institute of World Economics and International Relations at the Russian Academy of Sciences, agrees that the need for this reform is ripe.

    “The first problem is establishing an orderly, well-balanced international currency system, which is different from the one we have now, a system that is dollar-centric but not pinned to any realities or international agreements. The reason is that the Bretton Woods is no longer applied and now there are no clear-cut international boundaries within which the currency system functions.”

    The French Minister of Finance did not even try to conceal that she was first and foremost unhappy about the respective moves of the USA and China. Those two countries are rather openly pursuing weak national currency policies that are beneficial for local manufacturers but detrimental for European ones. Experts warn that for this very reason these two giants of the world economy will be against the radical reconstruction of the world financial system. Analysts recommend that Europe should start with itself, that is establish a uniform taxation system, strengthen the economic integration of the EU and, most importantly, sort out its debts. The burden of this indebtedness is what is worrying investors and discrediting the Old World currency, Dmitry Smyslov says.

    “Another issue for the EU authorities is improving how the European Currency Union functions. To achieve this aim, countries should agree upon their national budgets and centralize their coordination. Simultaneously, a permanent mechanism for helping countries in trouble should be set up.”

    It is not all that simple. Even the establishment of a 750 billion euro Rescue Fund in 2010 could not do without a scandal. Some countries openly declared that they did not want to bail out their imprudent neighbours. While the Europeans were arguing, China built up its gold reserves, adding 19% in 2010, and even began to buy up the bonds issued by European countries. This strengthened the yuan even more. The USA breathed down China’s neck, raising the value of the dollar, pumping cash into the market and selling more and more bonds to foreign investors. France is hardly likely to be able to change this situation without serious support from other members of the G20.

    , Feb 8, 2011

  • High-ranking French officials visit Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople

    High-ranking French officials visit Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople

    patriarchateHigh-ranking officials of French Foreign Ministry Jozeph Mela, French Ambassador to Ankara Bernard Emie and French Consul General in Istanbul Herve Magro visited Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople.

    The top officials stressed their purpose is to better get acquainted with the patriarchate and the Armenian community in Istanbul.

    Armenian patriarch vicar of Constantinople Aram Ateshyan presented the diplomats history of the Armenian Community in Istanbul.

    via High-ranking French officials visit Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople | Armenia News – NEWS.am.

  • Officials: Police arrest 6 suspected Kurdish separatists in southern France

    Officials: Police arrest 6 suspected Kurdish separatists in southern France

    MARSEILLE, France – Police in southern France on Tuesday took six people into custody for alleged links to a Kurdish militant organization, weeks after Turkey’s prime minister said Europe wasn’t doing enough to help his country crack down on the group.

    Police said the arrests in and around Marseille on Tuesday came as part of a probe by a Paris antiterrorism judge investigating alleged illegal financing of the group, Kurdistan Workers Party, also known as PKK.

    The group is considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union. It has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.

    Under French law, the suspects can be held up to 96 hours for questioning — after which they must be released or charged.

    A local Kurdish association said those rounded up included several of its members, including its former president. Roni Baran, a spokesman for The Center for the Kurdish People in Marseille, denied they had committed any wrongdoing and said the operation aimed to “criminalize our association and the Kurdish people.”

    Pierre Dharreville, a leader for the French Communist Party in the Marseille region, protested the arrests, saying the area’s Kurds are political refugees who are active in society. He said it would be “intolerable” if the six were in custody because of France’s desire to maintain good trade ties with Turkey.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last month that some European countries were not doing enough to help it fight terrorism. He did not single out any particular countries. Turkish officials have said the PKK raises funds through extortion or other criminal activities in European countries that have a large number of Kurdish immigrants.

    via Officials: Police arrest 6 suspected Kurdish separatists in southern France – Winnipeg Free Press.

  • Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU

    Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU

    Thomas Seibert

    Last Updated: Dec 3, 2010

    ISTANBUL // One evening last year, Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, was circling over Paris in his plane, when his advisers suddenly told pilots to change course.

    They wanted to prevent the president, an outspoken opponent of Turkish membership to the European Union, from laying eyes on the Eiffel Tower. At the time, the tower was lit up in the Turkish national colours in honour of a visit of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish prime minister.

    The incident, reported by diplomats of the US Embassy in Paris in a memo in December last year and published this week by WikiLeaks, offers a glimpse of how adamant Mr Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey’s EU bid is.

    A number of WikiLeaks cables spanning several years and written by US diplomats in Paris and Ankara suggest that it will be very hard, if not impossible, for Turkey to overcome European, and especially French, resistance to its wish to join the EU.

    “Whatever the ramifications of keeping Turkey out, he opposes bringing 70 million Muslims into Europe,” one US cable from 2007 said about Mr Sarkozy.

    In a meeting with Philip Gordon, the US assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs, in September last year, French government officials said they hoped that Turkey itself would give up its EU accession talks that have dragged on since 2005 without much progress.

    Jean-David Levitte, a French presidential adviser, told Mr Gordon that “Paris hopes that it will be the Turks themselves who realise that their role is best played as a bridge between the two worlds of Europe and Asia, rather than anchored in Europe itself”.

    Turkey, a Muslim-majority country bordering Iran, Iraq and Syria, has repeatedly rejected calls from France and Germany to accept a “privileged partnership” with the EU instead of full membership.

    Ankara says it is determined to stick to the negotiation process despite resistance by France and other EU countries. All 27 EU members have to accept the application of a new member state.

    Although it is the ultimate aim of Turkey’s EU talks for the country to fulfil all accession criteria by completely implementing EU law, known as the acquis communautaire, this possibility is a horror scenario for the French, according to the US cables. Mr Levitte, the French advisor, “predicted that a worse case scenario would be if Turkey finally manages to complete the acquis and end negotiations and a public referendum is held in France which is finally opposed to their membership”.

    Memos written by US embassy officials in Ankara express Turkish frustration with Mr Sarkozy and with Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, who also favours a “privileged partnership”.

    There was “a sense in Turkey of distance from and lack of sympathy for Europe”, US diplomats in Ankara wrote in January this year. “Both popular and elite Turkish opinion has recently grown much more pessimistic about eventual EU membership.”

    The memos also record Israeli concerns that the rejection Turkey has encountered in the EU is pushing the country towards the Muslim world, with Israel having to pay the price in seeing its ties to its long-standing partner deteriorate.

    Israeli officials told their French counterparts in October last year “that if Europe had more warmly embraced Turkey, then the Turks would not be taking steps to earn approval in the Arab and Muslim world at the expense of Israel”. The French “begged to differ”.

    But there is not only scepticism in Europe towards Turkey’s EU bid, but also within the ruling party in Ankara itself, US diplomats wrote. Some members of the more Islamist wing in Mr Erdogan’s Justice and Development Party, or AKP, had their doubts about the EU project, they wrote in 2004.

    While some members of the religious AKP wing “assert that it is only through Turkish membership and spread of Turkish values that the world can avoid the clash of civilisations they allege the West is fomenting, others express concern that harmonisation and membership will water down Islam and associated traditions in Turkey”, the cable said. Next page

    via Cables show Sarkozy does not want Turkey in EU.

  • Turkey in the Axis of Radicalism? An Alternative View of Europe (Dedeoglu)

    Turkey in the Axis of Radicalism? An Alternative View of Europe (Dedeoglu)

    Sunday, November 14, 2010 at 7:32AM | Scott Lucas in EA Middle East and Turkey

    TURKEY EUWriting in Zaman, Professor Beril Dedeoglu of the University of Galatasaray in Istanbul intervenes in the discussion of whether Turkey has been aligning itself with non-Western powers under the rule of Justice and Development Party (AKP). Beyond questioning the existence of an ‘axis’, Dedeoglu asks if the real shift is occurring within the European Union, seeing a possible UK-French alliance v. a German-Russian front following a deep economic crisis:

    The term “axis shift” is used for countries that are supposedly changing their overall political positions, meaning that they abandon their current system of security and values to replace them with a new system.

    This term, which is used as a political tool, would have meaning if axes existed in the current global circumstances. Nevertheless, even if this political qualification is now used, it is not right to use it solely for Turkey; one must be able to test it elsewhere as well.

    The EU’s values and policies are dictated by the West’s stable and developed structures, which are marked by principles and rules. However, its practice does not always match the principle. The EU became what it is today because it has managed to regulate the rivalry between its members. Particularly in the security domain, rivalry has been thoroughly organized with every treaty and mechanism imaginable put in place in order to prevent one member state from becoming a security threat for another.

    However, the changing global conditions are pushing the member countries to progressively abandon the idea of mutual interdependence, which is at the basis of their partnership. Some serious problems have already started to appear, with the current economic and financial crisis stimulating debate over necessary reform in the security and defense architecture. Member states would like to reduce their defense spending without causing gaps in security, as they are afraid any such gap will be filled by the US.

    In order to find a solution, France and the UK have decided to make an agreement reminiscent of the Treaty of Dunkirk of 1947. For now, we do not know whether this will open a path to reunite the armed forces of these two countries, but we can say that this agreement symbolizes the beginning of a serious strategic cooperation. It is different from strategic cooperation initiatives witnessed elsewhere, such as the one between Turkey and Russia. The UK-France cooperation is more intense, and the two have not required a long process of confidence-building. It does not look like the cooperation between Turkey and Syria, either, as cooperation between the UK and France extends to the whole military domain rather than just a common fight against terrorism.

    Perhaps the first question to ask about the UK-France cooperation is which actors are expected to be disturbed by this rapprochement. History shows that we do not need to look far to get an answer. It seems that France has grown sufficiently away from de Gaulle’s approach to foreign policy and it is no longer filled with mistrust toward the UK. Maybe France hopes that an agreement with the UK will reduce Paris’ dependence on Germany. Such an effort risks replacing the German-French axis in Europe with another axis, one situated a little bit more to the north and with the US on one end. The UK’s new cabinet has already promised that they care about Europe more than their predecessors. Apparently they intend to keep that promise.

    If cooperation between France and the UK compels Germany to reinforce ties with Russia, then we will witness a real axis shift within the EU. If that happens, the debates on Turkey will also change as the “non à la Turquie” front collapses. The EU member countries may start competing with each other through Turkey, and some countries may stop refusing Turkey’s accession and while others increase their level of opposition.

    via EA WorldView – Home – Turkey in the Axis of Radicalism? An Alternative View of Europe (Dedeoglu).

  • Film as a cultural bridge between Turkey and France

    Film as a cultural bridge between Turkey and France

    BARÇIN YİNANÇ

    ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

    At a cultural program in Istanbul last week, supported by the EU and intended to bring French and Turkish directors together, Turkish director Reha Erdem said there are currently Turkish movies that break box office records and appeal to audiences all over the world. Erdem praised the funding generosity of the EU, and is particularly grateful to France for its support of independent cinema.

    European movie industry continues to function as a cultural bridge between countries. France is now working on setting up similar projects, funded in cooperation with Italy, Belgium, Poland and Spain.
    European movie industry continues to function as a cultural bridge between countries. France is now working on setting up similar projects, funded in cooperation with Italy, Belgium, Poland and Spain.

    Turkish cinema has never been so colorful, diverse and productive, and when one speaks about Turkish culture, Turkish cinema comes to mind first, according to a prominent Turkish director.

    Turkish director Reha Erdem said at an EU cultural bridges program panel last week that Turkish movies are now breaking box office records all over the world. Praising EU funding for the joint production of movies, Erdem said she was particularly grateful to France for its support of independent cinema.

    ARTE and cultural difference

    Michel Reilhac, the head of the French branch of ARTE, a European cultural television channel, explained how the launching of the television station nearly 20 years ago by French President François Mitterand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl had contributed to the European movie industry and continues to function as a cultural bridge.

    The founders of ARTE believed it would bring French and German citizens closer on a cultural level, and would promote cultural integration throughout Europe. It was a political initiative they believed would foster cultural integration, providing a vehicle for a political process that would give flesh to the very idea of the EU.

    The launching of ARTE marked the first and only time a television channel was created for audiences in two different countries. “The challenge at the start was to set up a channel that provided the same programming for two different cultures,” Reilhac said.

    “Seeing how ARTE has been able to provide a bridge for cultural differences between France and Germany has been fascinating,” he said.

    “We saw how different from Germany we were. We have a different sense of humor and different literature. ARTE allowed us to confront and appreciate these differences. We seldom agree on one program, and we know that decisions will never be 100 percent satisfactory for both sides, but we manage,” Reilhac said.

    Reilhac said France is now working on setting up similar projects, funded in cooperation with Italy, Belgium, Poland and Spain.

    A key personality in the French audiovisual and filmmaking landscape, Reilhac also spoke about trans-media, a new phenomenon in the industry. “It is a new form of story telling, and is being invented as we speak,” he said. “It is not limited to one platform, and can be used with cell phones, computers, and televisions.”

    The importance of film festivals

    While Reilhac believes we need to stop thinking that films can only be seen in theaters, he still thinks watching a film in a theater provides the best way to access a film. “Theaters won’t disappear, and festivals will grow in importance,” he said.

    The Istanbul Film Festival’s 30-year existence stands as a testimony to Reilhac’s views. “Although it has now become much easier to access films, interest in the Istanbul Film Festival keeps increasing,” said Azize Tan, director of the festival since 2006.

    The festival began following the 1980 military coup, in a political environment that made it impossible to access new films and produce new movies. As its popularity increased, the festival has become a huge event, during which up to 220 films are shown to around 150,000 people.

    Moderated by Serra Yılmaz, one of the best-known Turkish actresses in Europe, Italian actress Lavinia Longhi, who played Claudia Cardinale in Ali İlhan’s “La Signora Enrica,” also attended the panel. The movie is set to be screened in Turkey soon.

    The cultural bridges program encourages actors and cultural organizations in Turkey and the EU to cooperate in contemporary arts and culture projects.