Turkey, EU Reach Deal for Opening Talkswashingtonpost.com
Turkey, EU Reach Deal for Opening Talks
Austria Demonstrates Opposition to Turkey's Participation
By John Ward Anderson
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, October 3, 2005; 4:57 PM
PARIS, Oct. 2 -- The European Union agreed Monday to open talks with Turkey about joining the elite, 25-nation group, but only after bitter opposition by Austria exposed deep apprehensions about the future of the union and the consequences of admitting such a large, poor, Muslim country to its ranks.
The agreement, hammered out during a two-day emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg, allows Turkey officially to begin negotiations toward its long-sought goal of joining the community of European nations. The EU membership process, during which the union will set benchmarks for Turkey to meet in areas such as human rights and economic and democratic reform, is expected to last 10 to 15 years, and at the end, there is no guarantee that Turkey will be admitted.
Although the EU unanimously agree last year to open talks with Turkey on Oct. 3, Austrian officials in recent days indicated that they wanted to renege and offer Turkey a "privileged partnership" in the EU rather than full membership. Since launching membership talks with a country requires the unanimous approval of EU nations, Austria's last-minute opposition threatened to scuttle the talks and deepened a sense of crisis that has plagued the EU since voters in France and the Netherlands rejected its proposed constitution last summer.
Although Austria finally dropped its opposition, allowing talks to begin immediately, the dispute raised anew the question of whether Turkey will ever be welcomed into the union.
"We've reached final agreement," Turkey's foreign minister, Abdullah Gul told reporters as he headed to the airport in Ankara. He was expected to fly to Luxembourg Monday night for ceremonies to mark the start of negotiations.
Austria's opposition infuriated some members of the union, particularly Britain, which saw it as a betrayal of long-standing promises made to Turkey. Turkey rejected the idea of a privileged partnership and threatened to walk away from further negotiations.
But Austrian officials said changing circumstances forced them to reconsider Turkey's membership bid.
Following the defeat of the EU's proposed constitution in last summer's referendums, many Europeans began questioning the direction of the union and its future expansion. Analysts interpreted the defeats as strong signs that voters were angry at the EU's unresponsive bureaucracy and undemocratic institutions and concerned about Turkey's eventual membership.
"There is the question if the EU can take this, if we are paying enough attention to our people," Austrian Foreign Minister Ursula Plassnik told reporters in Luxembourg before relenting, according to Reuters. "Austria is listening to the people."
Showing the depth of feeling the dispute stirred in Ankara, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told his party's lawmakers on Sunday that Turkey was part of "a project for the alliance of civilizations," according to the Associated Press. He said he hoped the EU would "show political maturity and become a global power, or it will end up a Christian club."
Austria has historic animosities with Turkey, and in Europe, Austrians are considered among the most opposed to Turkey's membership. Some European diplomats said they thought the Austrian government's move to derail the talks was tied to Sunday's regional elections in Styria province. Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel's Austrian People's Party lost its 60-year grip on power in the voting.
In addition, Austrian officials demanded that if Turkey were going to begin negotiations for EU membership, its close neighbor Croatia should likewise be allowed to begin membership talks.
Croatia's bid was frozen by the EU in March because of United Nations complaints that the country was not cooperating in bringing an indicted war criminal to justice. Monday, the U.N.'s war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte, told reporters in Luxembourg that "For a few weeks now, Croatia has been cooperating fully with us," which potentially opened the door for Croatian membership talks to begin soon.
Austria's gambit underscored what analysts say is a growing ambivalence of Europeans toward their political and economic union -- feelings that also were apparent in last summer's referendum defeats. Despite the official approval of their governments to open talks with Turkey, opinion polls across Europe show broad public opposition to Turkey's membership.
In a July survey by the German Marshall Fund, only 22 percent of those polled in nine of the EU's biggest countries said that Turkish membership would be "a good thing," while 29 percent said it would be "a bad thing" and 42 percent said it would be "neither good or bad." Opposition was particularly strong in France and Germany, where only 11 percent and 15 percent, respectively, said that Turkish membership would be good, while 47 percent and 40 percent said it would be bad.
The opening of talks with Turkey also coincides with anxiety about the rise of radical Islam, terrorist bombings in Madrid and London, concerns about increasing immigration and sluggish European economies. With 70 million people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim, and a per capita GDP of $6,772, many Europeans argue that Turkey -- which has more people than any EU country except Germany -- is too big, too poor and too Muslim to join their union.
Some Europeans fear that Turkey could siphon billions in agricultural and infrastructure subsidies from other nations, or send waves of unemployed, impoverished Turks to their countries. Turkey shares a combined 1,040-mile border with Iran, Iraq and Syria, and its membership in the EU would bring Islamic fundamentalism to Europe's doorstep, they argue.
A key stumbling block for Turkey has been its refusal to recognize Cyprus, a divided island state and EU member that Turkey invaded in 1974. Turkey continues to control the northern part of the island. Some criticize Turkey's checkered human rights record, particularly its treatment of ethnic Kurds. And still others believe that, geographically and culturally, Turkey simply is not a part of Europe.
"The EU is a historical union, not just a financial one, and their history is more linked with the Near East and Middle East," said Caroline Vidal, 26, a midwife in Paris. "They have a majority Muslim population. The country has nothing to do with Europe."
Supporters of Turkey argue that it has been a member of NATO since 1952, it is a member of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and it was a bulkhead against communism during the Cold War. Now, they say, Turkey can be an important bridge between Islam and the West.
The country adheres to a strict separation of mosque and state, and its people are generally secular and moderate. Many political leaders say Turkey is the model of a modern, democratic Islamic state that Europe should embrace as a an example to other countries around the world, particularly in the Middle East. And while poor, they say its 70 million people offer a rich economic opportunity for investment and trade.
In a speech last month, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who led the EU negotiations with Austria, said that Turkish membership would "demonstrate that western and Islamic cultures can thrive together as partners in the modern world." More recently he noted Turkey's role in the Cold War and said, "No issues were raised then that it had an Islamic majority."
