THE EUROPEAN VOCATION OF TURKEY

By Dr. Evangelos Ilias-Tembos Historian-Senior Strategic and International Relations Analyst

According to the conclusions of the Helsinki European Council in 1999, Turkey is considered as a candidate member to the EU. The European vocation of Turkey has no explicit timetable since the country has to fulfil many and complex criteria. The Turkish decision to follow the European path has not been new. Merely six months after Greece has declared its interest in signing a relevant association agreement with the EEC in 1959, Turkey proceeded with a respective move aiming at weakening the Greek choice and acquiring the same political, diplomatic, economic and commercial benefits that Greece would obtain. However, since then Turkey’s choice has been proven to be very difficult.

            The Turkish politico-military establishment has not realized that such a course demands consistency, continuity, credibility and above all respect for the European values. The few direct involvements of the Turkish military in the political scene and the many indirect (such as the ban on the operation of the Islamic party, Refah in January 1998), underscore that Turkey can not or does not wish to follow a course that will lead her closer to Brussels. The coups by the Turkish officer corps had held hostage Turkish politicians and in extension both domestic and foreign policy. However, Brussels does not tolerate such actions that do not agree with the rule of law and the democratic principles on which EU is founded.

            In Turkey co-exist two separate and antagonistic power centers. The legitimate government that came as a result of the general elections of November 2002 with a powerful 34,3% of the people’s votes and which has rallied popular dismay on old and tested parties, many of which did not pass the threshold of 10% in order to enter the Great Parliament, and the bureaucratic institutional power, centered around the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but mainly the military power with its most fervent and legally strengthened body, the National Security Council-TGS. It is the second that decides on the planning and implementation of the foreign and defence policy of Turkey and regulates the conditions, the needs and the demands, which are later delivered to the political power in order to be implemented as its own decisions, if not simply forced on it. In such a complex and many times counterproductive and contradictory double command framework, Turkey’s relations with Greece and Cyprus are placed. The powerful TGS remains to a large extent the arbitrator of Turkey’s political life, in spite of the many legislative packages initiated and adopted by the Turkish government aiming to curtail some of the latter’s influence and converging Turkish community and state to the European models.

            After the Copenhagen European Council in 1993, the criteria for the candidacy to the EU have increased numerically and upgraded qualitatively. Apart from the merely economic criteria that were set by the Maastricht Treaty candidate-members to the EU must be governed by stable democratic regimes that should exchange power in an transparent way, must adequately protect the minorities in their territory, respect fundamental rights and human liberties and have viable economies that could function within the global antagonistic framework and finally be in a position to incorporate the acquis communitaire.

            Turkey does not fulfil any of the above criteria, so far and the prospects for doing so, even of the less demanding nature, are very few. The Turkish economy is very fragile and changeable to the international and domestic upheavals and it is very difficult for the country to attain a long-standing fiscal discipline that is demanded in order to obtain EU approval. Beyond that, Turkey will have to persuade EU on a more difficult domain, that of human rights. Turkey must proceed to the fundamental protection of human rights and liberties and the protection of the minorities in her territory. As a result of that Turkey’s relation with Brussels remain fluid due to the slow progress of liberalization of Turkish society and state and due to the ambivalent and contradictory moves made by the legislative and executive power in Turkey that would theoretically allow the Turkish state to democratize and Europeanize itself. The Turkish regime must also acknowledge that the only way of resolving international disputes is through internationally recognized institutions such as the International Court, and the newly created International Criminal Court, as well as, widely-accepted ways of international arbitration and mediation. Turkey must respect and obey and implement the international treaties to which she is a member and denounce the threat of force and the use of force as means to resolve interstate differences. Turkey must comprehend that the conspicuous or even tacitly constant violation of international rules can not be allowed to go on indefinitely, and at some point that tolerance will cease. It should be understood that the aforementioned tolerance is exhibited mostly by the United States and to a much lesser degree by the EU. However, the latter one is sometimes obliged to follow the American example, after the exert of influence and pressure by the USA on some pro-US EU members. The tolerance whish is allowed to Turkey comes as a result of Turkey’s geo-strategic and geo-economic position. Turkey’s longstanding basic aims have been the (self) proclamation to a peripheral guarantor power in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Balkans, the Near and Middle East and Caucasus with a possible respective decrease of the status of Greece and Cyprus. In this geographical context, Turkey demands from all the neighbouring and littoral countries their respect and recognition of Turkey’s peripheral power, aiming to impose on them Turkish interests and goals. Turkey does not cease to remind her transatlantic ally, NATO and the EU of the stereotypic conception that exists about her, that is the most vanguard post of the West and particularly of the USA¹ in the area, the only credible interlocutor for the West there and the only Islamic country and simultaneously a secular state in the Middle East which is not on the brink of falling into a Islamic fundamentalistic spin.

            Turkey through that tactic attempts at upgrading her status indefinitely, first as a bulwark-moat against the old Soviet influence and pressure on the states of the Middle East and today as a solid example against the danger of Islamic fundamentalism. Turkey does not cease to reinforce on the transatlantic relationship with the USA through multilateral and bilateral pacts, agreements, treaties and armaments programs. By such moves it constantly reminds the USA that she is located in a very delicate and fragile geographic context which if left unchecked, there is the danger that it may become the power keg of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East. Therefore, Turkey replenishes her relations with the USA and NATO and stresses on them that she is the most reliable bond between the two. Turkish leadership through such schemes has managed to acquire from the USA huge political, diplomatic, economic and military gains and with its tacit or explicit tolerance keeps on violating international law. The USA² , from their part, believing that Turkey has been and still is the most reliable and credible partner in the Middle East and guarantor of stability without which the USA can not carry on manipulating and controlling any developments in the area, allow Turkey’s continuous violations of international law to go unpunished.

            Turkey needs both Greek and Cypriot concurrence in order to join the EU or least to have her accession process initiated. Any assistance offered by the USA is limited as Turkey keeps on acting as a despotic ruler of the Eastern Mediterranean. Let us not forget that Turkey still illegally occupies about 38% of Cypriot and part of EU territory. No matter how much pressure can USA exert on Brussels for achieving Turkey’s accession into the EU there must be a fundamental turn in Turkish policy vis a vis Greece and Cyprus and an improvement of Turkey’s image³ . Such an improvement of Turkey’s image cannot take place without the assistance and consent of both Athens and Nicosia. That implies that Turkey must work towards the resolution of its problems with Greece, as also the Helsinki European Council conclusions prescribe, while making a substantial progress on the Cyprus imbroglio which she herself has created. Therefore Greece’s contribution is essential for Turkey’s European vocation. Turkey, on its part, must resolve its disputes with Greece through the arbitration of international legal bodies, such as the International Court in The Hague.

            However, it is entirely unknown whether the Islamic government in place will proceed to deep and radical changes in the political scene of Turkey and in the way the country is ruled, aiming at fulfilling all the EU criteria for the beginning of the pre-accession procedure at the end of December 2004, without affecting –at least to a significant degree- the vested interests of the military regime in Turkey so as to force them into another covered or open constitutional diversion. It is without doubt that by the end of 2004 none of the bilateral differences between Greece and Turkey will have been resolved or even deferred to an internationally accepted legal body.

            That is the case however, if Turkey honestly wishes to become an EU member. Otherwise, it can satisfy itself with the Customs Agreement which is in place since 1996 and remain a close and associate EU partner. If Turkey understands that its European vision is beyond its reach and extremely costly, it may suffice itself with a good economic and trade relation with Brussels from which it will pump out economic benefits as a parasite without adding anything. In such a case Turkey, will decide to deepen even more its relations with the other internationally significant poles Nato and the US. If Turkey fails to obtain the much-desired date for the beginning of the pre-accession talks with the EU, it may almost certainly blame Greece and Cyprus for that failure. That in itself, may lead to the creation of tension between the two countries in the form of pretentious incidents.

            In such an unfavourable situation Greek strategic deterrence will be based on battle-reliable armed forces which should always be operationally ready.

¹ Even though that particular concept brings her into frequent clashes with the rest of the Islamic states in the Middle East.

² The American scientific and news-reporting community frequently refers to Turkey as a pivotal state which restraints and controls Muslim extremism from spreading to the rest of the countries in the Middle East, most of which are pariah-states for the US and as a credible representative of the West within the Arabs.

³ Let us not forget that the Greek extended reaction to the release of the 4th Financial Protocol that was earmarked for Turkey and the implementation of the Customs Union between the latter and the EU was justified. It took a lot of pressure by Brussels and the reward of Greece with many political and economic guarantees and facilitations in order for the latter to lift its objections.