Turkey and the European Union
Analysis by Prof. Dr. NORMAN BARRY, published on Today’s Zaman, 30th Jan, 2007
There seem to be further difficulties in Turkey’s application to join the European Union.
Some relate to cultural and political aspects of the application, and I will deal with these last. But first the economic questions. The union is a market economy and new member states must meet certain vague standards. But all the evidence suggests that Turkey has met them better than the two newest member states, Bulgaria and Romania. Unemployment is down to 10 percent, clearly lower than Bulgaria’s, and agriculture has been reduced to 33 percent of the economy, less than Romania at 42 percent. The government of Recep Erdogan has pursued an orthodox conservative economic policy and has succeeded where other, more overtly free, market governments have conspicuously failed. Inflation, which raged for 25 years, is now a thing of the past. Economic growth is at a spectacular 7.5 percent per annum and has been for the past five years. But per capita income is at $8,400; this still some way behind the EU average of $28100. This is partly because the country has been a little slow to expand in the higher valued areas of production and services. Although employment in agriculture is now down to 28 percent, the average in Europe is 5 percent. But this is changing rapidly. Turkey now produces 53 percent of all European TVs and is moving into automobiles and high-tech electronic goods. But improvement here will require massive investment in education to produce a workforce equipped to cope with the demands of globalization. Compared to the EU there are far too few women in full-time employment and too few of the jobs here are what Europeans would call regular, salaried full-time employment. Indeed there is a large informal economy in Turkey. The regional variations in income between the relatively impoverished rural east and the prosperous west will not please the egalitarians in Brussels. But there are similar income discrepancies in other European countries and surely the bureaucrats in Brussels will not expect a Scandinavian utopia overnight from an economy that has experienced some turmoil in the past 30 years? Perhaps the European skeptics are concerned about Turkey’s free trade credentials and have the country’s prohibition of Cyprus vessels docking in its ports in mind. But that relates to the political objections to Turkey’s entry into the EU rather than the strictly economic. And it must not be forgotten that Turkish Cyprus has been almost completely isolated by the rest of the world. And it is the Greek Cypriots who have resisted reunification of the island. When it comes to economics Turkey has a good case: it is certainly better than Bulgaria’s or Romania’s and is as good as Spain and Portugal’s when they applied. Of course, there is still much to do, not least absorbing the acquis communitaire, the myriad and ever expanding set of rules and regulations of business that each new member must accept as a condition of entry. But Turkey’s economy is thriving at the moment, and the wise and prudent economic stewardship of Erdogan’s government has made it capable of coping with the new conditions of the European Union. Furthermore, it has a young population, average age 28, which puts it in a better long-term position than those of France, Germany and Italy, whose ageing populations will impose a tremendous burden on their workers in the near future for the payment of state pensions. At the end of the day one feels that it won’t be economics that bars Turkey’s entry into Europe: there is a genuine fear that Europe’s Christian culture will not be able to absorb over 70 million Muslims. There is definite hostility to Turkey in France, and the government has promised a referendum before it will agree to the acceptance of the country. And Germany and Italy have populations with similar predispositions. All this seems rather strange from a continent that loudly displays its secularism. Most countries of old Europe have abandoned their Christian heritage. And it also shows a complete lack of knowledge of Turkey, whose secularism, in unpropitious circumstances, is as rigorous as theirs. And then there is the question of civil liberties, which seems to interest European politicians more than economics these days, and they are anxious to put Turkey in the dock on three issues. First there is the alleged “Armenian genocide,” then the problem of Kurdish separatism and the abiding complaint that in Turkey the military has too great a say in politics. I deliberately say “alleged” Armenian genocide since there is genuine disagreement among reputable historians about what exactly took place in World War I. Undoubtedly there was harsh treatment of the Armenian minority, but was it a genocide? Probably not, and we must remember that it also took place in extraordinary times: Turkey was fearful of Russia and a potentially subversive minority posed a serious problem. But France is convinced of Turkey’s guilt and has passed a law making “Armenian genocide denial” a criminal offence. Well, the French are very fond of moralizing, but not about their own behavior in Algeria, for example. Most European hostility to Turkey is much governed by ignorance, and this is undoubtedly true of the Kurdish question. There was some denial for the Kurds of the use of their own language and they were deprived of their broadcasting rights. But their freedoms have been increased in recent years, and let us not forget: the Kurdish terrorist group, the PKK, was the most brutal in Europe, if not the world. They were responsible for at least 30,000 deaths. Britain has had serious problems with the IRA and Spain with ETA but these groups do not compare in ferocity with the PKK. There have also been occasions in Turkey when the military has taken power, but only for brief periods, and civilian rule has been quickly restored. And, anyway, the military in Turkey has been a force for secularism and compared to most military rulers has been relatively benign. On the whole Turkey is as well-qualified as most regimes for membership in the European Union. But the ultimate question needs to be asked by the Turks themselves: Do they really want or need to join? Economically the country is doing quite well, and it is not at all clear that it would benefit from membership of the EU. It already does 53 percent of its trade with Europe, and that will continue whatever the outcome of their application. And do they wish to join what is now a laggard economy, with constricting regulations and a declining share of world trade? It is not like some rapidly expanding, young Far Eastern economy. Turkey, with its vigor, is more like these economies rather than the sleeping giant of the European Union. The only reason for Turkey joining Europe was political: it is perhaps the final destination of Ataturk’s dream of transforming a near-medieval theocratic state into an advanced country, industrialized and characterized by civility and the rule of law. It can have all these things without the French 35-hour maximum working week.