Michael Gunter

THE IMPLICATIONS OF TURKEY’S EU CANDIDACY

Michael M. Gunter
Professor of Political Science at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville, Tennessee (USA)

Turkey’s  longstanding Kurdish problem  has potentially entered a new phase with Turkey’s candidacy for membership in the European Union (EU) . Indeed, the way to solve the Kurdish problem in Turkey may prove to be through the Copenhagen Criteria, which mandate the stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights, and protection of minorities. There is no bargaining on these criteria. Turkey is required to accept them for entry into the EU. For all Turks who want to fulfill Mustafa Kemal Ataturk’s ultimate goal of achieving contemporary civilization  and for the ethnic Kurds living in Turkey, EU membership for Turkey will be a win/win situation because it would guarantee Kurdish rights within the confines of Turkey’s territorial integrity.

Turkey’s EU candidacy would also help put the lie to the clash-of-civilizations thesis  of inevitable war and even Armageddon between the Christian West and Islamic East. As a member of the EU, Turkey would offer the Muslim world an attractive moderate model of cooperation and prosperity with the West that would benefit all. In addition, young, hardworking Turkish workers will help solve Europe’s problem of zero population growth not being able to support the EU’s welfare state.

However, the Turkish EU candidacy should not be supported naively. Kerim Yildiz has aptly demonstrated the many pitfalls that Turkey, the Kurds, and the EU must face along the way.  On the one hand, Yildiz optimistically declares that “for the Kurds, the stipulations in the field of minority and human rights attendant to the accession process offer unparalleled scope to achieve long-term justice and security. Already, the prospect of accession has triggered rapid and extensive legislative reforms since 2002.”  On the other hand, Yildiz warns, “questions must be asked as to whether Turkey has truly changed her colours, and whether the EU’s decision to open accession talks was based on a genuinely objective appraisal of Turkish progress on democratization and human rights.”  Recent Turkish reforms to meet EU mandated criteria sometimes appear to be merely paper concessions, tokens, illusory, or simply sham measures. There have been too many failures to curb torture, guarantee freedom of speech and press, permit the flowering of civil society, institute cultural and linguistic rights, rectify internal displacement, and deal with renewed conflict in the southeast. 

Similarly, a century ago the English diplomat Sir Charles Eliot contrasted the theoretical and real world of Turkish laws: “If one takes as a basis the laws, statistics and budgets as printed it is easy to prove that the Ottoman Empire is in a state of unexampled prosperity. Life and property are secure; perfect liberty and toleration are enjoyed by all; taxation is light, balances large, trade flourishing. Those who have not an extensive personal acquaintance with Turkey may regard such accounts with suspicion and think them coloured, but they find it difficult to realize that all this official literature is absolute fiction, and for practical purposes unworthy of a moment’s attention.”  What is new today?

In December 1991, Prime Minister Suleyman Demirel declared that “Turkey has recognized the Kurdish reality.”  Two years later, the new Prime Minister Tansu Ciller broached the “Basque model” as a potential formula for solving Turkey’s Kurdish problem after a meeting with the Spanish prime minister.  Then in December 1999, the former Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz declared that “the road to the EU passes through Diyarbakir.”  None of these proposals led to any concrete results. It remains to be seen, therefore, what will happen to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s declaration in August 2005 that Turkey had a “Turkish problem,” had made “grave mistakes” in the past, and now needed “more democracy to solve the problem.”  True, Turkey has made progress, but some of it is not real, and more is needed.

Turkey’s longstanding mindset against the Kurdish identity will not end by mere verbal declaration. Frankly, this Turkish prejudice against the legitimacy of the Kurdish identity reminds one in some respects of the former prejudice against African-Americans in the United States.  Although the United States still has progress to make on this issue, the genuine reforms it has instituted during the past half-century and the resulting stronger state of the nation might serve as a partial model for Turkey.
The EU Commission’s unwillingness to address the Kurdish problem as a cohesive issue is troubling. Instead, the EU implicitly seems simply to agree with Turkey that the Kurdish problem is just a terrorism issue or at most a limited human rights problem. If the EU prematurely accepts Turkey as a member, it will damage its own human rights commitments and jeopardize its long-term credibility. It is hoped that Turkey’s EU candidacy can be promoted in such a manner as to help genuinely solve its Kurdish problem within the confines of Turkey’s territorial integrity as well as creating a healthy democratic Turkey that will benefit all of its citizens and the EU too.

In the past we were told that France was too unstable to make democracy work,  while Germany was too authoritarian.  Today, however, we can see how these characterizations eventually proved untrue. The same can be said for such other states as Spain, Italy, and Japan. A similar evolution is possible for Turkey. This great state can make democracy work for all its citizens, and the entire world will be better for it.