"The Turkish Antidote to 'Clash of Civilizations'
Matthew Kaminski ("Membership Has Its Privileges -- Or Does It?" editorial page, June 27), despite his extensive knowledge of Europe and Turkey, is falling into the trap of an oversimplification. Turkey's EU aspirations are not a mere footnote within the EU's Balkans/Urals expansion dilemmas, if any.
Turkey-EU partnership goes back to times when Eastern European/Balkan workers were not an economic threat, but a military threat in their Warsaw Pact uniforms. Turkey's membership to the EU is a process that started in 1963 and symbolizes the country's objective to be an equal partner of modern democracies and pro-market economies. Turkey didn't start this journey yesterday or after the fall of the Berlin Wall; it has been a prominent NATO member for 53 years, defending Western Europe's security and prosperity by guarding an area extending from the Balkans to the Urals and to the Middle East.
Turkey's relationship with the EU goes back to the times of the union's formation; around four million Turkish citizens live and contribute to the economies of EU countries. This is more than the population of many EU member countries.
Turkish democracy is 85 years old and rests on a strong pro-Western modernization drive that goes back 200 years. Turkey is also a historic corroboration that a traditional Muslim country can reform itself, and sustain modern democratic traditions and a liberal economy in alliance with Europe and the U.S.
In the 1.5 billion-strong Muslim world, Turkey is best poised to become an equal partner of an otherwise Christian-dominated EU. The Muslim world, bombarded by the sinister propaganda of terror, radicalism and anti-Western sentiments, closely watches the EU's attitude toward Turkey.
The EU, no matter how uncomfortable, needs to decide whether it will incorporate Turkey's predominant Muslim population as an equal partner or try rebuilding another Berlin Wall at its borders with Turkey and thus with the Muslim world. We hope that the EU would not be willing to trigger our biggest fear, a "clash of civilizations" in the 21st century. Turkey's EU membership is the antidote of this fear. In the meantime, Turkey is too important to be lost under the smoke screen of an envisaged Balkan/Ural expansion debate.
Egemen Bagis
Ankara, Turkey
(Mr. Bagis is a member of the Turkish Parliament representing Istanbul and foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Erdogan.)
The Kaminski piece is below.
June 27, 2005
COMMENTARY
Membership Has Its
Privileges -- Or Does It?
By MATTHEW KAMINSKI
June 27, 2005
ZAGREB, Croatia -- Europe's insular elites are in a huff over the demise of their constitution. For a change, this political, existential, salutary, pick-your-adjective crisis resonates beyond the Brussels Beltway -- and above all beyond the European Union's eastern frontiers.
Here in Croatia, a former Yugoslav and Hapsburg outpost that missed last year's train to join the EU, many people now fear that another chance to be truly European won't come again for a long time -- if ever. Over lunch, a group of Croat businessmen tell sad tales of falling foreign investment and waning government momentum on reform since the French and Dutch soured on the constitution and put future EU expansion in jeopardy.
Any delay or halt to the EU's eastward march would be a painful side-effect. Little wonder that the countries outside the EU are often more exercised about the constitutional troubles than club members. It's not out of any love for the hapless treaty. The EU states know that life will go on as before. Croatia, the other Balkan countries, Turkey, Ukraine and Georgia -- all desperately knocking at the door to "Europe" -- lack the luxury of a predictably boring future.
In trying to find their feet, these countries on Europe's edges have sold tough reforms to their voters with a simple line: That's what it takes to get into the EU. So why would the EU abandon its most effective foreign-policy tool? Good question.
The French government quickly spun the non vote against the constitution as a vote against future EU growth. Jacques Chirac insists that no one else can join without a ratified constitution. EU President José Manuel Barroso and others seem to agree. France isn't happy with the 10 newest EU members, who are mostly pro-American and whose entry made it harder for Paris to steer the EU as before. Conveniently, France came up with an excuse to stop here all by itself.
Turkey was expected to start accession talks in October and Croatia -- assuming Zagreb plays nice with the U.N. war crimes prosecutors for the Balkans -- soon after. Both dates are in doubt. The January 2007 entry of Bulgaria and Romania may be delayed, too. Tony Blair, who assumes the six-month rotating EU presidency Friday, wants to push expansion, but the resistance from other West Europeans will be hard to overcome.
It's true that at heart last month's French vote, more than the Dutch vote, reflected deep anxiety over globalization. The most effective non campaign slogan promised "a different Europe" without low-wage "Polish plumbers" or "Turkey," which together symbolize an EU (and globe) of open borders. For Europe to come to terms with a Turkey or Ukraine in the club, it must first come to terms with the modern world. Today a majority in the prosperous but stagnant EU states -- symbolized by "France," if you will -- want to live in denial.
The last time that Europe lost interest in its own backyard, in the early 1990s, the Balkans blew up in war. A decade on, the eastern borderlands are wobbly still. Young leaders in Ukraine and Georgia are trying to show that good governance can put down roots in hostile turf. Turkey's human-rights record improved and its economy grew a remarkable 10% last year -- all in part thanks to changes pushed by the EU -- but the Islamist rulers have a difficult job to finish.
In the Balkans, the threat of renewed violence must be neither exaggerated nor dismissed. Kosovo may soon break from Serbia, which needs to reconcile itself to the loss. Bosnia's rival ethnic camps will have to reopen the decade-old peace accord to get a better national constitution. Croat politics are haunted by nationalism. Solutions to all these problems are imaginable as long as the ultimate goal for the region is inclusion in the EU and NATO. Without that, bets are off.
Since the 1999 Kosovo war, the last U.S. military intervention in Europe, the EU took the initiative on the Balkans, Turkey and, though less so, Ukraine with American blessing. Its policy, in a word, was enlargement. If the carrot of membership becomes less appetizing or disappears, the U.S. will have no choice but to re-engage, on its own or through NATO. Some allies will help. Poland, a new EU member, champions Ukraine in Europe and the U.K. and Germany are committed to the Balkans. But America remains the adult supervisor in Europe.
The EU matters really for the small things, like helping Serbia clean up its customs police or Turkey adopt liberal media laws. "Europe has been able to drive extraordinary reforms," Jean Lemierre, president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, told me. "If they see too many obstacles [to EU membership], too many difficulties, you'll see a new political debate."
Perhaps, but we shouldn't be overly pessimistic. For all their claims to "love Europe," Turkey & Co. don't dream about the bloc's 80,000-page rule book or the blue flag with a dozen yellow stars. No, they badly want to join the rich, free and interconnected world. The EU is, or was, their ticket in. The drawn-out process of accession gave them access to a Western, as opposed to a strictly European, marketplace not only of goods but ideas, democratic standards, and stability.
Put a different way, it's more important for countries to qualify to join the EU than to actually be members of the bloc. Turkish and Balkan leaders insist that the EU-mandated reforms were beneficial in and of themselves. They now need to walk this talk.
For the institution known as the EU, the future survival of enlargement -- an ugly word to describe remarkable changes in Europe -- will be the litmus test. Mr. Chirac and friends say that they now can't imagine Turkey or Ukraine in the club. What's harder to picture is a relevant EU without them.
Mr. Blair takes the EU helm at an opportune time. Last week before the European Parliament, the British prime minister made the obvious but little-heard case that a vibrant Europe needs open economies and open doors. This Europe would be "confident enough to see enlargement not as a threat -- as if membership were a zero sum game in which old members lose as new members gain, but an extraordinary, historic opportunity to build a greater and more powerful union." In other words, heretical by Brussels standards, the EU needs the Croats and the Turks more than they need the EU.
Mr. Kaminski is deputy editorial page editor of The Wall Street Journal Europe."
