Turkish Forum

Tag: Turkey – EU

  • Lithuania, Turkey are strengthening political, economic relations

    Lithuania, Turkey are strengthening political, economic relations

    President Dalia Grybauskaite met with the President of Turkey, Abdullah Gul, who has arrived in Lithuania for an official visit. The Presidents discussed possibilities to strengthen political and economic cooperation between the two countries and to develop business relations. In the run-up to Lithuanian presidency of the EU Council, the heads of state also touched upon the progress in Turkey’s EU accession negotiations, the presidential press service said.

    During the visit a memorandum of understanding will be signed regarding Turkey’s participation in the railway project Viking which connects the Baltic and Black Sea regions. After Turkey joining the project, Lithuania would become a bridge linking the southern and northern parts of Europe and would attract more attention and investments from Turkish entrepreneurs.

    The President of Turkey in Lithuania is accompanied by almost 100 business representatives. Tomorrow the Presidents will open the Lithuania-Turkey business forum with a business contacts fair as its part.

    Turkey’s trade representation for the three Baltic States was opened in Vilnius last year. A new direct Istanbul-Vilnius route will be launched by the Turkish Airlines this summer.

    The Presidents also addressed the EU-Turkey relations. During its presidency of the EU Council Lithuania will seek a constructive and mutually beneficial dialogue between the EU and Turkey. Lithuania fully supports Turkey’s membership in the EU.

    According to President Dalia Grybauskaite, Lithuania’s goal during its presidency of the Council of the EU will be to give a new impetus to the frozen negotiations between Turkey and the EU. The President stressed that effectiveness in the EU-Turkey negotiations depends on Turkey’s progress in implementing key reforms. Lithuania will also seek progress in negotiating visa facilitation regime between Turkey and the EU.

    Among the other issues discussed at the meeting was cooperation within NATO. The President thanked the Turkish leader for the support in establishing the Lithuania-based NATO Energy Security Center of Excellence and participation in the Baltic airspace protection.

  • Verheugen: Europe cannot do it without Turkey

    Verheugen: Europe cannot do it without Turkey

    The European Union needs Turkey if it is to succeed as a global player, former Commission vice-president Günter Verheugen tells EurActiv.

    Günter VerheugenGünter Verheugen is a former Commission vice-president and enlargement commissioner. He was a speaker at the Future of Europe Stakeholder Workshop organised by the EurActiv Foundation on 22 March in Brussels, where he spoke to EurActiv’s Samuel Doveri Vesterbye.

    How do you see the future of Europe?

    Despite the problems that we have, despite the inefficient crisis management that we have, and despite the lack of support in our societies, European integration must continue.

    We are in a changing global environment and I have to say that only a stronger and bigger Europe can cope with the challenges of the future.

    First thing that we have to do is prepare an agenda for reform. There is a very broad call for reform of institutions, the functioning of procedures and results. And we should address the reasons why people are dissatisfied or at least uncertain. This can deliver very clear results in order to strengthen public support.

    Then as a next step we can discuss the question of further integration. At this junction, I would not say that it’s useful to talk about the next step being political union. It’s too early to talk about the need to have a United States of Europe or a federal state. I don’t see a single European nation prepared to abandon its own statehood in favour of a super state.

    But for the time being I think we should organise support for the idea that a stronger Europe in the sense of unity and more areas where can act together. And in the sense of widening, including European countries which are particularly important for our future, in particular Turkey.

    Which are the areas that need reform in the EU?

    One of the problems is the transfer of sovereignty in a one way direction. The question must be asked and we need to find an answer on whether there are responsibilities, competence and powers which we can give back to member state, at a national, regional or local level.

    Number two is the question of regulatory environments that we are creating. President Barroso said a few months ago that less could be more. I fully agree with him. We need more self-restraint. The rule must be that we do at European level, after very tough scrutiny, only what can’t be done at a national or regional level. But it must be a very tough principle.

    Number three is the question of targeted spending. I’m not against a strong community budget, but the way we spend it can be improved. If the results are creating disparities then something is obviously wrong.

    [A] final point would be more flexibility; taking into account specific interests of member states as far as they do not hamper the general objectives of European integration. There are many things which are harmonised where you can ask the question of whether it’s useful for the functioning of the European market or monetary union.

    The overarching issue is the one of democratic structures. The next deepening must be combined with a considerable strengthening of democratic structures. Personally I would go as far as to say that we need a fully-fledged parliamentary system at the EU level. The executive must be the result of parliamentary elections, the commission must be fully accountable to the Parliament and the hierarchy of institutions must be changed in favour of the Parliament.

    What’s the importance of Turkey for Europe and enlargement?

    In the case of Turkey there is a strategic and economic meaning. Strategically Turkey is the country that can be the mediator between Western democracies and the Islamic world.  It can play a very important role in terms of which direction the Arab or Islamic world will develop.

    These questions are absolutely crucial for our own future and we cannot do it without Turkey. Economically Turkey is potentially one of the strongest European economies, growing very fast. And Turkey is sitting in a region with a huge potential, meaning that Turkey would not weaken the EU – it would make it stronger.

    Without Turkey we can forget our ambition to be a global player in the future.

    via Verheugen: Europe cannot do it without Turkey | EurActiv.

  • The EU’s non-negotiations with Turkey

    The EU’s non-negotiations with Turkey

    The EU’s negotiations, or rather non-negotiations with Turkey, turned out to be tricks, jeopardising the EU’s reputation and respectability. What the Germans and others don’t seem to realise is that they expect more from Turkey than they do from themselves, writes Dr. Petra Erler.

    Dr. Petra Erler is managing director of the European Experience Company GmbH in Potsdam and served as Head of Cabinet of the former EU Commissioner Günter Verheugen in Brussels.

    This article was translated from German.

    “In the enlargement negotiations, Chapter 19 on social policy deals with all questions regarding the adoption of EU law by applicant countries in this area, ensuring that future member states fully comply with Community law.

    For several years now, the progress of negotiations has clearly depended on applicant countries having to meet so-called opening benchmarks, in other words specific requirements formulated by the EU.

    Anyone wishing to delay the negotiations or set the bar extremely high has to get creative with regard to these opening benchmarks, as in the case of Turkey and Chapter 19.

    Unlike other chapters, this chapter is not being blocked for political reasons. Opening this chapter would thus send a strong signal of the willingness of both sides to advance Turkey’s accession process. However, it is precisely this willingness which seems to be lacking.

    Trade union rights

    In chapter 19, the EU requires Turkey to comply with ‘EU standards’ as well as conventions no. 87 and 98 of the International Labour Organization (ILO) before accession talks can begin. These conventions include important trade union rights concerning, inter alia, the right to organise and the right to strike.

    At first glance, one is tempted to genuinely thank the Commission and the member states leading the negotiations for addressing this important issue and thus also influencing the situation in Turkey for the better. After all, only a minority of Turkish workers are organised in trade unions.

    On second look, however, one begins to wonder what exactly is meant by “EU standards”. A closer look at the Commission’s screening report on Turkey shows that this actually refers to articles 5 and 6 of the European Social Charter, which have not yet been ratified by Turkey.

    Sobering comparison with EU member states

    Anyone who concludes from this that all EU members have ratified the articles mentioned would be mistaken. Spain and Germany have issued statements on this. Four other member states have not made commitments to all sections of these articles.

    There’s also the issue of the revised European Social Charter which was implemented in Turkish national law in 2007. Although this revised Charter has long been signed by ten EU member states including Germany, it has not yet been ratified, let alone implemented.

    With regard to the ILO conventions, it could be argued that once a state has entered into international obligations it must fully comply with these obligations. One has to agree with that, and the ILO has indeed criticised Turkey for the poor implementation of the conventions mentioned above.

    ILO criticises right to strike in Germany

    However, the ILO has expressed serious criticism as to the German understanding of who is allowed to strike and who is not. So what are the factors that define an EU standard? Moreover, why is this addressed under the section “adoption of the acquis” rather than in the part covering the political criteria? And why is the full implementation of these important rights considered the basis of the negotiations rather than the result?

    Don’t the Germans and others realise that they demand more from Turkey than they do from themselves? Or is simply that no one bothered to address the issue, relying blindly on the Commission, which is probably more than willing to consider the enforcement of international treaties as Community law. Did all this happen on purpose? Was it designed as a provocation?

    As it happens, Turkey did not complain and complied with the EU requirements. The legislative provisions were critically revised and updated in 2012 by the social partners. By consensus.

    And once again Brussels is not satisfied.

    It is a lesson for all those obliged to conduct negotiations they do not wish to have or doing so without paying attention. No one seems to care that such tricks jeopardise the EU’s reputation and respectability.

    via The EU’s non-negotiations with Turkey | EurActiv.

  • Talking Turkey And The EU

    Talking Turkey And The EU

    Istanbul-Turkey
    Istanbul, Turkey

    By Neville Teller — (March 19, 2013)

    It was in April 1987that Turkey knocked on the EU’s door and asked to be let in. Twenty-five years later, Turkey is still lingering on the threshold.

    One key factor barring the way to Turkey’s full membership occurred many years before it applied.

    The population of Cyprus has historically consisted of about 75 per cent Greek and 25 per cent Turkish origin. Following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, Greek Cypriots began to press for Enosis − union with Greece. Matters came to a head in 1974 when the military junta then controlling Greece staged a coup in Cyprus and deposed the president. Five days later, Turkey invaded and seized the northern portion of the island. The Turkish invasion ended in the partition of Cyprus along a UN-monitored Green Line. In 1983 the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus declared independence. Turkey is the only country in the world which recognises it.

    Greece itself was admitted to the EU as far back as 1981; Cyprus (the portion, that is, not occupied by Turkey) became a full member in 2004. So one major stumbling block to Turkey’s accession is the fact that the country is at daggers drawn with two established EU members.

    But that is only one stumbling block among several. Also to be considered is the direction that Turkey has been taking on the international scene since its current government came to power.

    From the time Recep Tayyip Erdogan became prime minister in 2003, Turkey’s old secularist, pro-Western stance began to change, and support for Iran and the Islamist terrorist organisations Hamas and Hezbollah began to dominate Turkey’s approach to foreign affairs.

    Erdogan, a charismatic politician, acquired his pro-Islamist sympathies while still at university. In 1998, when mayor of Istanbul, they earned him a conviction for inciting religious hatred, and he went to jail for several months. All the same, in 2002 his Islamist AKP party won a landslide victory in the elections, and Erdogan became prime minister.

    Rooted as he is in hard-line Islamism, Erdogan’s unqualified condemnation of Israel’s incursion into Gaza in November 2008 came as no great surprise. Nor did his refusal to accept the 2011 UN report into the Mavi Marmara affair, which concluded that the Israeli blockade of the Gaza strip was legal, and raised “serious questions about the conduct, true nature and objectives of the flotilla organizers, particularly IHH” – a Turkish Islamist organisation supported by the government.

    A report on Israel-Turkey relations prepared by the Centre for Political Research concluded that: “for Erdogan, Israel-bashing is a way of bolstering his status with Islamic and Middle Eastern states, which Turkey would like to lead.”

    An Islamist axis led by Turkey? Only a few years ago the idea would scarcely have been feasible. Today the mere possibility represents one further obstacle on Turkey’s path towards full membership of the EU. For there is rooted opposition among a tranche of EU members to the very idea of clutching an Islamist viper to their Judeo-Christian bosom.

    Chief among them is Germany. “Accepting Turkey to the EU is out of the question,” said Angela Merkel in 2009, and there is no reason to believe that she has changed her mind. Her chief of staff, Ronald Pofalla, said on his website: “I ask myself how a country that discriminates against Christian churches could be a member of the EU.” The most that German opinion-leaders would like to offer Turkey is “privileged partnership” in the EU.

    France under President Nicolas Sakozy was equally rooted in its opposition to Turkey’s accession. With the change of president to socialist François Hollande, Turkey hoped, in the words of Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, that “a new course in Turkish-EU relations will gain momentum”. But Hollande, during his presidential election campaign, said that while France has long accepted the principle of Turkish accession to the EU, major conditions have not been met and may not happen for several years.

    Austria – perhaps recalling that Muslim forces of the Ottoman empire twice stood at the very gates of Vienna, beseiging the city − have proved strong opponents to Turkey’s entry to the EU. The USA and the UK, on the other hand, with shorter memories, apparently discount the threat that Islamism poses to the West and remain strong supporters of Turkey’s bid.

    But is Turkey as committed to joining the EU as it once was? After all, Turkey’s economy is booming, while the EU is in dire financial straits. Moreover, Kristina Karasu, writing in Der Speigel, points out that following the AKP’s overwhelming re-election in June 2011, Turkish desire for reforms has stalled.

    “Even as Prime Minister Erdogan likes to position his country in the Arab world as a role model for Muslim democracy,” she writes, “thousands of Kurds, students and more than 100 journalists are sitting in jail in Turkey based on what are sometimes absurd charges.”

    For the Turkish bid to be successful, EU member states must unanimously agree. In December 2011, a poll carried out across Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain and the UK, revealed that 71 percent of those surveyed were opposed to the EU admitting Turkey as a full member.

    A hesitant bridegroom and a bashful bride. The prospect of an early marriage is not bright.

     About Neville Teller
    Neville Teller is the author of “One Year in the History of Israel and Palestine” (2011) and writes the blog “A Mid-East Journal”. He is also a long-time dramatist, writer and abridger for BBC radio and for the UK audiobook industry. Born in London and educated at Owen’s School and St Edmund Hall, Oxford, he is a past chairman of the Society of Authors’ Broadcasting Committee, and of the Contributors’ Committee of the Audiobook Publishing Association. He was made an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours, 2006 “for services to broadcasting and to drama.” 
  • Romania vows to support Turkey’s EU membership

    Romania vows to support Turkey’s EU membership

    ANKARA, March 14 (Xinhua) — Visiting Romanian Foreign Minister Titus Corlatean on Thursday expressed his country’s support for Turkey’s membership in the European Union (EU).

    Speaking at a joint press conference with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu in the Turkish capital of Ankara, Corlatean said Romania supported Turkey’s EU process.

    He said “Romania supports the opening of chapters in Turkey’s EU accession process. Because, we believe this would create a win- win situation for both Turkey and the EU member states.”

    Turkey’s growing clout in the region, both economically and politically, may have given a boost to Turkey’s membership bid. Most EU member states support Turkish membership, while the other few led by Germany and France are finding it increasingly difficult to make their case against Turkey.

    The 27-member bloc’s highest decision-making body, the EU Council, reiterated last December the bloc’s commitment to active accession negotiations with Turkey, while calling for a new momentum in these negotiations, which was interpreted as an indication that France and Germany increasingly find themselves isolated in the bloc in their opposition to Turkish membership.

    During her visit to Turkey last month, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Ankara to open its ports and airports to ships and planes from Cyprus, while expressing her support for reviving the stalled accession talks between Turkey and the EU.

    Turkey opened accession talks with the EU in 2005 but has only been able to finish talks on one of the 35 chapters that a candidate country has to complete before joining the bloc. No chapter has been opened for talks for the past two and a half years.

    via Romania vows to support Turkey’s EU membership — Shanghai Daily | 上海日报 — English Window to China New.

  • Germany, France Nudge Open EU Door to Turkey

    Germany, France Nudge Open EU Door to Turkey

    By The Editors, on 12 Mar 2013, Global Insider

    erdogan1In February, German Chancellor Angela Merkel visited Turkey, indicating a willingness to help Turkey revive stalled negotiations over its longstanding bid for European Union membership. In an email interview, Rana Deep Islam, a project manager with Stiftung Mercator whose research focuses on Turkey-EU relations, explained the state of Turkey’s EU accession bid and how it could move forward.

    WPR: What is behind Germany’s recent statement that it will support reviving Turkey’s EU accession process?

    Rana Deep Islam: The German government under Merkel still does not have a clear-cut policy on how it wants to handle Turkey’s membership aspirations. On one hand, Merkel has said repeatedly that she prefers a so-called privileged partnership over full-fledged EU membership for Turkey. On the other hand, Germany still treads the path of negotiations and has not blocked the process as, for example, France did in the past. The German government’s announcement of support for the opening of a new chapter in negotiations reflects this seeming paradox, or German bipolarity, in the Turkey-EU context. Reviving the accession talks by extending negotiations to new domains might push the process forward in the short term. But it’s still unclear what Merkel envisions more broadly for the crucial relationship between Turkey and the EU. Nor is it clear how Merkel views the accession negotiations beyond their narrow technical aspects, which deal primarily with Turkey’s administrative and bureaucratic capacity to adopt the EU’s “acquis communautaire” — the French term the EU uses to describe the shared rights and obligations within the union.

     

    WPR: How significant is French President Francois Hollande’s statement that he was willing to unblock accession talks with Turkey, and what are the reasons for this political shift?

    Islam: Former French President Nicolas Sarkozy blocked the accession talks on chapters that he believed would make Turkey’s accession inevitable. Hollande’s willingness to give up this policy definitively is a step in the right direction and creates space for diplomatic maneuvering. However, it does not turn France into a proactive advocate for Turkey’s membership. Turkey’s prospects for joining the EU will only improve significantly if Turkey succeeds in finally regaining an intra-European alliance of supporters, as France and Germany formerly were under President Jacques Chirac and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

    Against this backdrop, Hollande’s intentions should be considered primarily strategic. First, he wanted to send a sign of good will to the Turkish government. In doing this he also passed the ball, if not the responsibility, to Ankara. Now it is up to Turkey to take up this initiative and respond appropriately. Second, Hollande’s shift needs to be seen in the context of a complex foreign policy agenda. With regard to the Middle East and North Africa, the EU cannot afford to act without Turkey on its side. France realized that reinvigorating the accession talks could be a useful tool to increase the EU’s capacity to act externally.

    WPR: What are Turkey’s current EU aspirations and how likely are they to be realized in the near to medium term?

    Islam: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently declared that his country wants to join the EU as a fully integrated member by the year 2023. If this does not occur, Ankara will adjust its policy accordingly and finally give up its EU ambitions entirely. But this seemingly clear articulation of Turkey’s position notwithstanding, the Erdogan government falters when it comes to adopting the norms and values of the EU, which is a precondition for accession. The domestic reform process that Erdogan pushed during the first years of his administration has slowed down significantly. Civil rights are at stake, with many journalists in jail. Apart from the “yes or no” dichotomy of the membership discourse, it is currently not clear if Erdogan still supports the Europeanization of Turkish politics and society. Joining the union, though, is not a matter of cherry-picking but of rights and duties. Therefore, refreshing the EU-Turkey membership talks also implies an imperative for a further liberalization of Turkish domestic politics. Erdogan still needs to show his willingness to seriously deliver on this front.

    Photo: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan (European Commission photo).

    via WPR Article | Global Insider: Germany, France Nudge Open EU Door to Turkey.