Tag: Turkey – EU

Turkey Moves Closer to EU Membership Talks

France on Tuesday said it was ready to resume EU accession talks with Turkey, marking a warming of ties after a long period of bilateral tension under former President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Speaking at the sidelines of a conference on Libya on Tuesday, French foreign minister Laurent Fabius told his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu that Paris is ready to unblock European Union membership talks on the subject of regional policy.

“I confirmed to him that we were ready … to begin discussions on chapter 22,” Fabius told a news conference. Turkey has completed just one of 35 policy “chapters” every candidate must conclude to join the EU. All but 13 of those chapters are blocked by France, Cyprus and the European Commission.

Turkey launched a formal EU accession bid in 2005, four decades after the first talks but the process has stalled due to opposition from core EU members France and Germany as well as an intractable dispute over Cyprus, the divided island state that Turkey does not recognise.

The talks have also been blocked by the European Commission, which says that Turkey does not yet meet the required standards on human rights, freedom of speech and religion.

“This is certainly a change of attitude from the former government,” said one official in Paris, although he added it was “too early” to tell whether France would now swing fully behind Turkish EU membership – a sharp contrast to Sarkozy’s position that Turkey did not form part of Europe.

Related Story: While Turkey’s Economic Star Rises, Sarkozy’s France Finds Irrelevance

Another French diplomatic described it as “a political signal, a first step” to pave the way for French President Francois Hollande to visit Turkey, although no date has been set.

Despite the slow progress, the eurozone crisis and waning domestic support, Turkey has continued to push for full membership in the EU and has said it wants to join before 2023, the centenary of its founding as a republic.

Earlier this month, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said his country’s half-century wait join the EU was “unforgivable” and it should be admitted without delay.

Erdogan has previously warned that the EU could “at the very least” lose Turkey if the bloc continues to alienate and give it the cold shoulder and recently raised the possibility of deepening ties with the Russian-Chinese backed Shanghai Co-operation Organisation instead.

At the end of last year, Ankara accused the EU of “biased and unwarranted bigoted attitudes” in an official report on its membership application process.

In a statement accompanying the official 270-page report, Turkey’s EU affairs minister Egemen Bagis said:

Today there is no government in Europe which is more reformist than our government. While EU countries are struggling in crisis, our country is experiencing the most democratic, prosperous, modern and transparent period in its history. The ‘sick man’ of yesterday has got up and summoned the strength to prescribe medication for today’s Europe … and to share the EU’s burden rather than being a burden to it.

In the decade ending 2012, Turkey recorded the highest-growth rate among the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development economies and is expected to grow 4 percent or more in 2013.

via Turkey Moves Closer to EU Membership Talks | Economy Watch.

February 14, 2013
EP politician says Erdogan’s criticism of EU ‘sad’

EP politician says Erdogan’s criticism of EU ‘sad’

Influential European Parliament politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff said it was “sad” to hear such complaints from Turkish PM

World Bulletin/News Desk

Responding to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s criticism of the EU during his Eastern European tour, influential European Parliament politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff said it was “sad” to hear such complaints from Erdoğan.

Noting that Turkey has not made long-standing reforms in the past 50 years due to military interventions and still has problems with regard to human rights, one of the leading members of the European Parliament, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Vice Chair Lambsdorff, said: “It is sad that Erdoğan criticizes the EU in this way. He knows very well that the past 50 years in Turkey have not seen continuous progress in terms of democracy. On the contrary, military coups, human rights problems and lack of political pluralism have remained serious impediments to real progress.”

The German politician made it clear that it is not the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) that is responsible for what has happened in recent decades to halt Turkey’s bid to join the EU. However, he underlined that the pace of reform under Erdoğan’s AK Party government has also slowed recently. “These are not the fault of the current government, obviously, but the AK Party’s reforms have slowed down so dramatically that Europe is the one expecting a move from Turkey today rather than the other way around,” he said.

Speaking on Turkey’s EU accession bid early in the week while on a trip to Central Europe, Erdoğan said that Ankara is determined to revive the country’s negotiation talks and that he will pay a visit to Brussels in the near future as part of this effort. He said there are “many things” to talk about with regard to the membership talks. He said it took less than a decade for the Czech Republic to become a member of the 27-member club but that Turkey has been waiting on the EU’s doorstep for more than 50 years. “Keeping Turkey busy at the door to the EU is unforgivable,” Erdoğan said. “Why are you making us wait for 54 years? … Even if the EU does not take us in, we want our cooperation to continue,” the prime minister said, adding that Turkey already has 5 million people living in the EU.

German Greens co-leader Cem Özdemir has also said that Turkey’s reconsideration of its EU membership bid despite some positive developments is quite surprising.

The prospect of a peacefully united Europe in the 21st century cannot be realized without Turkey, Özdemir said. Turkey is of great importance to Europe in overcoming its difficulties, he added, referring to the ongoing financial crisis in Europe.

“The fact that dissenting views have been expressed [about the EU bid] despite the conditions in favor of Turkey surprises me. I think no one should join those who stand against Turkey’s EU membership,” the politician said. He then promised to support Turkey’s EU bid if his party comes to power in Germany. He said Germany will be one of two countries to throw its support behind Turkey’s bid and indicated that Spain is the other.

Turkey began accession talks with the EU in 2005, but progress has been slow since then due to the Cyprus dispute as well as opposition to Turkey’s membership by some member countries, including France and Germany. Of the 35 chapters that must be successfully negotiated by any candidate country as a condition for membership, only 13 have been opened by Turkey; 17 have been blocked and four have not yet been opened — only one is provisionally closed, on science and research. No chapters have been opened since the end of the Spanish presidency in June 2010.

via EP politician says Erdogan’s criticism of EU ‘sad’ | Politics | World Bulletin.

February 11, 2013
Rapporteur says renewed agreement on Turkey’s EU bid needed

PanARMENIAN.Net – Ria Oomen-Ruijten, the European Parliament rapporteur on Turkey, has said a renewed mutual agreement in the context of Turkey’s EU accession process is needed to maintain a constructive relationship, commenting on a recent statement by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the EU’s stance on Turkey is “disrespectful”, Today’s Zaman reports.

Speaking about Turkey’s EU process last week during a trip to Central Europe, Erdoğan said Turkey was continuing to fulfill its obligations rising out of EU membership negotiations. However, he noted that Turkey’s membership process began in 1959 – with the European Economic Community – and was accelerated in 1963.

“And we have been patient all this time. How far we have come? When you look, there is the customs union [1996] and the Helsinki summit [1999, when Turkey was given candidate status] and the official start of Turkey’s negotiations. We can call these three important steps. Except for these three, they have only stalled. Has any other country been treated like this? No. This is in essence disrespect to Turkey. What is more natural than us expressing this situation?” Erdoğan said, adding that being an EU reject is not the end of the world.

In comments to Today’s Zaman on Erdoğan’s remarks, Oomen-Ruijten said Turkey needs to step up its efforts in the reform process, while the EU needs to make renewed efforts for the opening of negotiation chapters.

“There appears to be frustration in Turkey about the lack of progress in the accession negotiations. I believe that to maintain a constructive relationship, renewed mutual engagement in the context of the negotiation process is needed. Mutual engagement means efforts from both Turkey and the EU. Turkey needs to step up its efforts in the reform process, while the EU needs to make renewed efforts for the opening of negotiation chapters. The interdependence between Turkey and the EU can lead to positive results, but only in a context of mutual commitment,” Oomen-Ruijten stated.

via Rapporteur says renewed agreement on Turkey’s EU bid needed – PanARMENIAN.Net.

February 9, 2013
Turkey Hints at a Breakup With Europe

LONDON — A half century after taking the first steps toward becoming an integral part of Europe, Turkey may be ready to give up.

After heavy hints that Ankara is looking eastwards to a closer alliance with Asia, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, said this week that membership in the European Union was not a must for Turkey.

“It is not the Apocalypse if they do not let us in the E.U.,” Mr. Erdogan told reporters during a visit to Budapest on Wednesday, as he launched his latest broadside against the Union’s alleged delaying tactics to keep his country out.

His remarks followed a news conference earlier this week in Prague, where Mr. Erdogan described the delay in granting membership to Turkey as “unforgivable.”

These and similar expressions of frustration have come as Turkey approaches the 50th anniversary of an agreement with what was then the European Economic Community, which was to have led to eventual full membership in the bloc.

Mr. Erdogan set the tone in a television interview last month in which he accused the E.U. of dragging its feet because Turkey was an Islamic nation.

As my colleague Andrew Finkel wrote from Istanbul, the prime minister also “threw the diplomatic equivalent of a cream pie” into the debate by suggesting Turkey join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization instead.

Membership of the S.C.O., which groups Russia, China and central Asian states, is not widely viewed as a viable alternative to joining Europe. Andrew wrote that Mr. Erdogan’s proposal prompted Turkish columnists to ask whether he might be bluffing in an attempt to put pressure on the Europeans.

The same question was posed this week by Pravda.ru, a Russian news Web site: “The first thought about the purpose of such statements is the fact that Turkey is trying to express its disappointment with the stalled negotiations on accession to the E.U.”

But it did not rule out the possibility that Mr. Erdogan might be seeking power “wherever his country’s economic strength is consistent with its geopolitical needs as a global player,” in contrast to a weak Europe that was preoccupied with its internal problems.

Washington has suggested that Turkish membership in the S.C.O., a security organization viewed as an anti-American bulwark in Central Asia, might be problematic in view of the Turkish role in N.A.T.O.

“Obviously it would be interesting, given the fact that Turkey is also a N.A.T.O. member,” Victoria Nuland, the State Department spokeswoman, said last week.

Hugh Pope, the International Crisis Group’s project director in Turkey, suggested that Mr. Erdogan was courting popularity by bashing the Union.

Turks are frustrated not only by delays in the membership process, he told Rendezvous, but also by the draconian visa regulations they face when traveling to Europe. Potshots aimed at Turkey by European critics were also deeply offensive to Turks, he said.

“But joining the E.U. is not rocket science,” he added, emphasizing that Turkey had to meet the requirements of the club if it wanted to join. This would include making domestic reforms and changing its policy on Cyprus, an E.U. state that it refuses to recognize.

Mr. Erdogan’s recent remarks on Europe might not indicate that Turkey is quite ready to break off the world’s longest engagement.

Murat Yetkin, of the Turkish daily newspaper Hurriyet, commented on Wednesday: “It is…clear that Turkey-E.U. relations cannot go on like this any longer; another chapter this year, a pointless agreement the next.”

However, he wrote, “it seems that neither Turkey nor the E.U. wants to be the first to declare divorce. Perhaps because both sides know that it would be a strategically wrong move.”

via Turkey Hints at a Breakup With Europe – NYTimes.com.

February 7, 2013
Turkey our neighbour

Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of the parliament in Ankara | AFP PHOTO / ADEM ALTAN

Turkey’s relationship with Europe is at best uneasy but at other times has been fraught with conflict and hostility. Ottoman expansion was stopped at the gates of Vienna in 1683 and in the Mediterranean at the battle of Lepanto in 1571. Turkey’s insistence on maintaining a foothold in Cyprus is also a legacy of the Ottoman occupation. Turkey has since 1952 been a loyal member of NATO as witnessed by Turkey’s contribution to peacekeeping in Bosnia-Herzogovina, Kosovo and Afghanistan.

However, when it came to the stationing of NATO’s early warning radar in Turkey,

Turkey objected to Iran being named as the target and to sharing data with third parties i.e. Israel. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu, who is regarded as the architect of Turkey’s present foreign policy, banged home the point by claiming that Turkey was not a NATO partner but “an owner”.

Turkey’s long road to EU membership began with the Ankara Association Agreement in 1963 and was confirmed by the recognition of Turkey as a candidate country at the EU summit in Helsinki in 1999. It is ironic that Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, who secured Turkey’s candidacy, was also responsible for rejecting the offer of membership together with Greece in 1981.

In its invitation to Turkey the European Council underlined that candidate countries must share the values and objectives of the European Union and, in Turkey’s case, with particular reference to the issue of human rights. This decision led to a flurry of reforms initiated by Ecevit’s coalition in 2000 and, when this fell in 2002, by the present AKP (Justice and Development Party) government. Nevertheless, the EU Commission’s recommendation in October 2004 that Turkey had “sufficiently” fulfilled the political criteria to start accession talks was based more on Turkey’s strategic importance than a realistic assessment of the reform process.

As Naz Masraff from Eurasia Group argues in her PhD thesis, the AKP government made strategic use of EU conditionality to present itself as a Western, reformist, neo-liberal and secular party until it became clear that there was a contradiction between the AKP’s discourse and policies. Nonetheless, in the last couple of years there have been testimonials in the Financial Times, New York Times and EU Observer by various EU foreign ministers to Turkey’s strategic and economic value.

At the end of June 16 EU foreign ministers had termed Turkey “an inspirational example of a secular and democratic country”. But this was countered in a letter from the deputy chairman of the CHP (Republican People’s Party), Faruk Loğoğlu, who stated that their perception of the state of affairs in Turkey was “sadly out of focus”. In Loğoğlu’s view the AKP government pursues an authoritarian policy of incremental Islamization, so that democracy in Turkey exists largely in the abstract.

The overwhelming number of applications to the European Court of Human Rights bears witness to this fact – in June there were 19,373 pending applications – and, as the EU Commission pointed out in its 2012 Progress Report, the increase in violations of freedom of expression raises serious concerns. 71 journalists are still in prison, more than in Iran and China combined, and at a recent meeting a spokesman for the Turkish Freedom for Journalists Platform said the speed of Turkey’s democratization had slowed down.

The Turkish view

The picture would not be complete without the Turkish view of Turkey’s relations with the EU and the West. There has been much talk of Turkey’s ‘axis shift’ and in Foreign Minister Davutoğlu’s own words, “we formulate our policies through a solid and rational judgment of the long-term historical trends and an understanding of where we are situated in the greater trajectory of world history.”

In his Sarajevo speech in 2009 Davutoğlu made it clear that the goal of Turkish foreign policy was to place Turkey at the centre of an Ottoman renaissance and in his Konya speech in April the Foreign Minister laid out the AKP’s mission to create a new Islamic world order. A fortnight later Davutoğlu told the Turkish parliament that Turkey would be “the owner, pioneer and servant” of the new Middle East.

At the AKP’s congress at the end of September Prime Minister Erdoğan declared that the government was following the path of the Ottoman sultans Mehmet II and Selim I but made no mention of Turkey’s European future. Erdogan was also hailed by the leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, as “not just the leader of Turkey but also the leader of the Islamic world”.

The next day at the opening of the Turkish parliament President Abdullah Gül spoke of a country where its writers, thinkers and opinion leaders are able to share their views without fear. Prime Minister Erdoğan’s clear intention is for a new constitution to establish him as executive president in 2014 but the open question is whether Gül is prepared to run against him. According to a recent poll 50.9 percent would prefer Gül and 22.7 percent Erdoğan.

In 1995 Turkey became a full member of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Cooperation). The Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam limits the expression of opinion to a manner that would not be contrary to the Shari’ah, but Turkey is also a signatory to the International Convention on Civil and Political Rights as well as the European Human Rights Convention.

In a keynote speech at the Istanbul Forum in October Prime Minister Erdoğan’s chief adviser Ibrahim Kalın spoke of “a mental gap” between Islamic and Western notions of what constitutes sacred, religious rights and freedom of expression. The question is whether this gap is too wide to be breached.

About the Author

Robert Ellis

Robert Ellis is a regular commentator on Turkish affairs in the Danish and international press.

January 28, 2013
Can Turkey Become ‘the China of Europe’?

Turkey’s ambitions to be among the top ten global economies by 2023 could mean that the rising star of the emerging market economies becomes “the China of Europe”, according to an economist and a prominent Turkish business woman.

Turkey’s economy was the fastest growing in Europe in 2011, growing 8.5 percent (the second fastest after China among major emerging market economies). But in 2012 Turkey, like China, experienced a slump in growth as the global economic slowdown adversely affected its exports and capital inflows.

After what has been seen as a “soft landing” for Turkey, growth is seen picking up in 2013 with the latest HSBC manufacturing PMI reaching a 14-month high in December as new orders and exports rebounded.

(Read More: A Decade-Long Ascent to Economic Power)

Indeed, while most of Europe struggles to achieve 1 percent growth, Turkey is expected to have 3.5 percent growth in 2013, the IMF said in recent forecasts.

But that’s not enough if Turkey wants to fulfil its economic ambitions, Guler Sabanci, chairman of Sabanci Holdings, one of the largest industrial and financial conglomerates in Turkey, told CNBC.

“Turkey needs minimum 6 percent growth,” the member of one of Turkey’s most prominent industrial dynasties, told CNBC Europe’s “Squawk Box.”

“We have these 2023 targets where we would like to be among the top ten economies in the world. In order to reach those targets we have to catch 6 percent average growth in the medium to long-term,” she said.

Lofty Goals?

The “2023 Vision” is the name of a series of goals that Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan envisages for his country in ten years, with ongoing economic, social and infrastructure improvements making up the Republic’s aims.

By 2023, Turkey aims to achieve a gross domestic product of $2 trillion from $775 billion in 2012. It also hopes to make social improvements to achieve a per capita income of $25,000 by 2023 and reduce unemployment to 5 percent.

In 2012, the per capita income was $10,524 and unemployment was 9.8 percent, according to the World Bank.

Turkey also hopes to have 30 million people in the workforce by 2023 from 22.3 million currently.

“There is a lot of room for growth,” Sabanci told CNBC. “2013 is an important year for Turkey, we’re having serious infrastructure investments and logistic investments, there are serious opportunities,” she added.

Turkey Must Concentrate

“It’s a domestic consumption story, but it does need to move on,” emerging market economist at Nomura, Peter Attard Montalto, told CNBC. “Like all emerging markets, that next progression is towards taking the wealth, building the infrastructure and continuing to progress. I think Turkey is at that point.”

Apart from the country’s economic ambitions, Turkey has also been compared with China because of the rise of demand for mobile technology, e-commerce and communications.

“It has a very big attraction among the young generation, all the internet and cellphone usage numbers are high,” Sabanci told CNBC.

(Read More: Big Opportunities in Turkey’s Digital Market)

As the gateway between Asia and Europe, domestic consumption and consumer trends in the secularised but nominally Muslim country have been increasingly influenced by its western neighbors over recent years.

Take for example the traditional Turkish alcoholic drink called Raki. Consumption of the national drink has fallen 50 percent in the last 13 years as consumers have diversified to Western alcoholic beverages. That’s been a huge opportunity for global brands, such as Unilever and Diageo (which acquired Turkey’s leading spirits company Mey Icki in 2011).

Turkey’s Journey to Europe

Turkey has been seeking membership to the European Union (EU) in the face of some tough opposition within Europe.

Sabanci said Turkey’s “journey to Europe” has been a 50-year one and accession discussions must continue. After becoming an associate member of the European Economic Community in 1963, Turkey has enjoyed good trade relations with its continental neighbor, Europe.

Talks over the country’s accession to the EU began in 2005 on the condition that Turkey embark on a series of economic and political reforms and a normalization of trade relations with Cyprus, which it has done.

However, talks were stymied by then-French president Nikolas Sarkozy who objected to Turkey becoming a full member or Europe, offering a “special partnership” instead.

Turkey refused the offer but has since gone through a rapprochement with the EU and has started negotiations again.

via Can Turkey Become ‘the China of Europe’?.

January 21, 2013