Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess

The EU’s Turkish Opening

MADRID ‒ June’s Turkish general election sent a powerful message: Turkey’s democracy remains intact. Indeed, while there were some grievances about transparency during the campaign process, democracy prevailed, with a stunning 86% of eligible voters turning out – a rate rarely seen in Europe. The rest of the world – and especially the European Union – should take note.

With their votes, Turkey’s citizens denied the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) the absolute majority that it needed to amend the constitution. Moreover, by giving the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) – which brings together the country’s long-marginalized Kurdish minority and other groups – more than 10% of the vote, they enabled the party to enter parliament for the first time, with representation throughout the country, not just in Kurd-majority areas. Reinforcing this triumph of pluralism, the Alevi and Christian minority groups won greater parliamentary representation, and the Yazidis and Roma will be represented for the first time.

The new parliamentary configuration is likely to have a major impact on Turkey’s foreign policy, which has faced serious challenges in the last few years. Indeed, as regional conflicts have intensified, the country’s central foreign-policy objective of ensuring “zero problems” with its neighbors has become unattainable. And the policies that Turkey has pursued, most notably toward Syria and Egypt, have satisfied neither the region’s Sunni-majority countries nor the West.

Perhaps more important, the AKP government’s foreign policy has faced considerable criticism from domestic forces, which now have more power to change it – an outcome that will occur regardless of whether the AKP ultimately forms a coalition or a minority government. The direction of change will have to account for the various parties’ preferred approaches.

The secular, center-left Republican People’s Party, for example, opposes interference in the internal affairs of any country, advocating instead that Turkey re-establish good relations with the countries of the region, including Syria. By contrast, the HDP protested against the previous AKP government’s failure to intervene last year when the Islamic State besieged the Syrian city of Kobane.

For its part, the rightist Nationalist Movement Party criticizes the AKP administration’s decision to denounce the current Egyptian government, arguing that the move has all but eliminated Turkey’s influence in the country. Now, the party asserts, Turkey should work to defend its regional neighbors’ territorial integrity.

Amid all of this uncertainty, one thing is clear: Turkey cannot turn inward. Indeed, as a regional power, it has a responsibility to work to ease tensions and promote conflict resolution. It also has a long-term national interest in increased regional stability, not least because it would help to stem the tide of refugees – already numbering two million – flowing into the country, while opening up more commercial opportunities nearby.

Turkey’s democratic revival represents an ideal opportunity for the EU to rekindle its relations with the country. The EU is Turkey’s leading trade partner and one of its largest investors, and has long considered Turkey to be a stable ally in a volatile region. The escalation of warfare and sectarian violence, which are becoming chronic, endanger both Turkey and Europe.

In this context, renewed relations would serve both sides’ interests. The EU could, for example, provide diplomatic support in Turkey’s dealings with its neighbors and humanitarian aid to help refugees. Given that a more stable Middle East would send fewer refugees and terrorists across its borders, Europe has a strong incentive to provide such support.

The urgency of this situation demands that the bilateral relationship move beyond narrow discussions of Turkey’s accession to the EU. After all, given broad resistance to any further EU enlargement at the moment, the accession process will undoubtedly move very slowly. The objective should thus be to find new, more efficient modes of cooperation that avoid the issues and conflicts that have impeded accession negotiations.

This is not to say that the accession process should be abandoned. Rather, other more efficient channels of cooperation should be opened up in parallel to it.

A good place to start would be a meeting of members of the European and Turkish parliaments. European leaders should also carefully monitor the possible revision of Turkish foreign policy, grasping opportunities to reignite bilateral dialogue on issues of common interest. This will require subsequent high-level meetings at regular intervals, in order to produce agreement regarding specific joint actions on urgent challenges.

This is a moment of opportunity for EU-Turkey relations, and it must be seized. Achieving the goal of enhanced stability in the Middle East requires the two sides to work together. Europe should not let this train pass it by.

Javier Solana was EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Secretary-General of NATO, and Foreign Minister of Spain. He is currently President of the ESADE Center for Global Economy and Geopolitics, Distinguished Fellow at the Brookings Institution, and a member of the World Economic Fo… read more

Comment

Commented hari naidu JUL 1, 2015

The answer to Turkey's membership in EU is (still) NO!

As long as Erdogan rules AKP there is no or little chance of reciprocity. However if Gul challenges Erdogan and forces an internal debate in AKP - on Erdogan's continued leadership -there is a good chance of some progress.

Otherwise Kurdistan state developments might undo AKP's politics & Erdogan might not survive.

EU has little or no leverage in Istanbul..Erdogan has ben flirting with ISIS to unseat Assad and even supplied weapons (covertly) in Kobane. Under Erdogan - AKP strategic goal of disallowing Kurd's to establish their own homeland - will ultimately backfire.

However, after the recent elections, the political leverage has moved in favor of Kurds...and it might be what foils Erdogan's leadership in Turkey. Read less Reply Comment

Commented Ömer Aytaç JUL 1, 2015

Turks will always consider what EU says but right now, it doesn't seem like europe has much to say. What is EU's stance on Egypt, Israel, Syria, Iran? Is everything indexed to just ISIS and Putin? Moving on, having brought on an unready Greece into the union, corrupting it through institutions and now letting it go with huge debt will surely be a very dark page in the history books for europe. Greeks have seen economic / financial tumbles 90 years of the 195 they've been seperated form the Ottomans - almost all of them based on events in europe. Moving on further, a europe that quarrels over who will receive 10 thousand refugees when Turks house 2 million without a sweat says something about how incompetant (I don't want to say inhumane - not yet at least) europe really is. These are just a simple set of examples of why Turkish citizens are less atuned to one day having brussels as their capital, no matter how many MPs they will have there. The EU has a lot of homework to do before it can apprach Turkey but EU is in a surreal state right now, procrastinating its way to oblivion. Read less Reply Comment

Commented j. von Hettlingen JUN 30, 2015

As former NATO chief and EU High Representative for Foreign and Security Policy, Javier Solana is advocating for Turkey's EU membership. Indeed, there's a chance that a EU membership would help democratise Turkey, in turn weakening the role of the Islamists, forcing the government to uphold rule of law and entrench democratic freedoms

Solana insists the accession talks between the EU and Turkey should resume after the June election, which ushered in a number of players, who had denied the ruling party under Recep Tayyip Erdogan the absolute majority. As they belong to ethnic minorities and political fringe parties, the 'new parliamentary configuration is likely to have a major impact on Turkey’s foreign policy'. How politically stable Turkey will be, is still too early to tell. With an autocrat like Erdogan in power, there is no guarantee that the 'powerful message' that 'Turkey’s democracy remains intact' lingers on.

In Europe, there is a sense of fatigue among EU members and a 'broad resistance to any further EU enlargement'. Nevertheless there are reasons to continue the talks, even if 'the accession process will undoubtedly move very slowly'. Solana knows that Turkey, with its size - 302,535 mi² (783,562 km²) - would be the biggest EU member by the time it joins. It would wield largest number of votes in European council and field largest number of deputies in European parliament .

It has the second biggest army in NATO and a strategic location in the Middle East. Europe needs Turkey to bolster security along its borders with Iran, Iraq and Syria. Before the civil war in Syria, Turkey's geographical location, culture and religion would make it a bridge to the wider region and allow the EU to become a serious player there.

Momentarily Turkey still has much homework to do, to meet political criteria. It is being criticised for flouting international law of human rights. The European public does not approve Turkey's bid to join the EU. Many Europeans are wary of Turkey's Muslim culture, and they fear an influx of Turks from poorer areas into Western Europe. They also see that Turkey has been unable to stop a flow of Western jihadists , who want to fight in Iraq or Syria and use Turkey as a transit country. Many illegal immigrants have been able to cross through Turkey to Europe.

Besides many Europeans are wary of Turkey's Muslim culture and the huge transfers to bring Turkey's infrastructure, agriculture and administration up to EU levels, which would strain the EU budget. But by rejecting Turkey's membership would also damage EU credibility, exposing the Union as prejudiced. Nevertheless EU leaders have enough crises to grapple with, that they will hardly seize the 'moment of opportunity for EU-Turkey relations' to restore stability in the Middle East. Read less Reply Comment

Commented Yaman Cakiroglu JUN 30, 2015

Mr. Solana, although I agree with you that there is a new opportunity for Turkey-EU relations, I want to emphasize that ordinary Turkish citizens mainly care about something else. They sent a powerful message in general elections, not just only to deny the ruling party an absolute majority, but also because they did not have any improvement in income and wealth inequality during the AKP rule. In the OECD inequality reports of 2008 and 2013 based on Gini coefficients, unfortunately Turkey's rank did not change at all from being the third worst. As a comparison, the US too stayed in the fourth worst rank, but in US a shift of governmental power from republicans to democrats, and vice a versa, is not necessarily a source of big internal and external uncertainties, because there is a rule of law that remains unchanged. This is really what ordinary Turkish citizens want to have, before even the problem of inequality can be addressed or the EU can be joined: the fair right 'to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' Read less