When the European Commission recommended this week that ten new states be welcomed to the EU in two year’s time, bringing their number to 25, it snubbed Turkey by refusing to even set a date for the start of that country’s accession talks. Now in a remarkable development, Greek Foreign Minister George Papandreou has said that he thinks that such a date should be set at the Copenhagen EU summit, just over two months hence.
It has always been Greek objections to even considering Turkey as an EU member that have always closed the issue, despite the professed willingness of, for instance, the UK and Germany to welcome the Turks. However, past Greek intransigence has always been a cover for a general objection to Turkey, almost certainly based upon the fact that though it is constitutionally a secular state, the overwhelming proportion of its population is Muslim. Such bigotry on the part of a predominantly Christian Europe (which now has a growing number of Muslim citizens) can no longer be concealed.
Hopefully now, largely economic arguments can move center stage. Turkey’s economy, though burdened with an excessive state presence, is in hardly a worse condition than that, say, of Slovakia, one of the ten chosen candidate nations. On human rights and commercial law, Ankara still has much to do, though with the repeal of discriminatory legislation against its Kurdish minority, it could be argued that Turkey is now ahead of Hungary, another candidate country, which stands accused of institutional discrimination against its large gypsy minority.
However, as Washington pointed out when it became clear that Turkey’s claims to EU membership were yet once again being ignored, there is a strong political reason for Turkish accession. As a member of NATO, the country represents the important southeast cornerstone of the US-European military alliance. That Brussels is prepared to inject political reasoning into its membership judgment is clear from the case of Poland. Though Poland’s economy is dynamic, it is still heavily skewed toward badly organized and low-productivity agriculture. It seems clear that on economic grounds alone, Poland’s membership case would be tenuous. But the EU is playing a long game here and sees Poland’s buffer position between Germany and Russia as of key importance. The Germans also want Polish membership, along with that of the other Eastern and Central European nations, because it will shift the axis of Union away from Paris. Perhaps as importantly, Polish membership will force a reform or abolition of the massively wasteful and futile subsidy system of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which could simply not afford to sustain Polish farmers at its current level of generosity.
In terms of political stability, Turkey is no worse than Poland. Both countries have seen revolving-door governments and a kaleidoscopic rearrangement of political parties. Indeed, in Poland, the changes have been the more rapid.
Turkey must, therefore, be given a clear date for the start of accession talks. The EU can no longer hide any prejudice against a Muslim state behind the objections of Greece, Turkey’s historic enemy and now its unexpected friend.
