Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Turkey's EU Bid Fades With Little Drama

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

  • Turkey's EU Bid Fades With Little Drama

    TURKEY'S EU BID FADES WITH LITTLE DRAMA
    Paul Taylor

    Reuters Blogs (blog)
    09:16 October 15th, 2009

    Turkey's bid to join the European Union is fading away with
    surprisingly little drama because investors no longer see the prospect
    of accession as an essential policy anchor.

    But EU leaders should keep Ankara's entry negotiations alive on the
    back burner rather than trying to engage Ankara on alternatives to
    membership, as French President Nicolas Sarkozy would like to do.

    In a version of the old Soviet workers' joke, "they pretend to
    pay us and we pretend to work," the buzz on Turkey in the European
    Commission's enlargement department is, "they pretend they're reforming
    and we pretend we want them".

    The EU's biggest candidate began accession talks on the same day as
    Croatia in 2005. At that time, optimists on both sides reckoned the
    negotiations might be concluded within a decade.

    But while Zagreb was told by Brussels on Wednesday that it can expect
    to wrap up its entry talks next year, Ankara has not even advanced
    one-quarter of the way. The Turks got another C-minus "must try harder"
    annual progress report.

    The unresolved Cyprus conflict has shackled their progress,
    prompting the EU to freeze eight of the 36 policy chapters in the
    negotiations. The election of Sarkozy, who is openly hostile to
    Turkish membership, forced the EU to take another five policy areas
    off the table.

    The changed political mood in France and Germany, the EU's two central
    powers, has dimmed prospects of the overwhelmingly Muslim nation of 71
    million ever joining the 27-nation bloc. Any further accession treaty
    after Croatia's will be subject to a referendum in France, where public
    opinion is strongly against Turkish accession, unless a three-fifths
    majority of both houses of parliament improbably decides otherwise.

    Without the magnet of membership, the EU's ability to spur political
    and economic reform in Turkey is ever weaker. Some in Brussels fault
    Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan for faili ell if most Turks rightly
    surmise that they have no prospect of EU entry.

    Five years ago, Turkey's accession process was seen, along with its
    International Monetary Fund standby loan programme, as a guarantee
    of monetary, fiscal and economic stability, drawing huge inflows of
    foreign direct investment and portfolio funds.

    Yet the absence of an IMF programme and virtual deadlock in the
    EU talks no longer spook the markets. Financial stability and
    the rule of law, at least for foreign investors, have become more
    self-sustaining. Turkey is set to exit the global financial crisis
    in better shape than most other emerging markets. The fact that it
    is still talking to the European Commission about adopting EU norms
    is reassuring for investors.

    The government is supporting negotiations for a solution on Cyprus,
    even though it still refuses to open its ports and airports to Greek
    Cypriot traffic. It has made a historic opening to Armenia (picture
    shows the Armenian and Turkish presidents with UEFA president Michel
    Platini at a soccer match) and now espouses a political and economic
    solution, rather than a purely military one, for the Kurdish southeast
    of the country. It has also gradually exerted more civilian control
    over the military, despite frequent tensions.

    Turkey has also built stronger ties with other neighbours -- Russia,
    Iran, Iraq and Syria -- while maintaining good relations with Israel
    and the United States.

    The Turks may one day decide on their own that they don't need EU
    membership. The accession negotiations have helped them modernise
    their economy and governance, But they have plenty of other strategic
    options.
Working...
X