BRUSSELS: Recent developments signal a significant deterioration in relations between Turkey and the EU.
During an annual conference of EU ambassadors in Brussels, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker on Tuesday said Turkey “is taking giant steps away from Europe.”
He expressed his belief that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wants the EU to stop membership talks with Ankara “to make it the EU’s responsibility, not Turkey’s.”
Responsibility for any breakoff in talks “is entirely on the Turkish side,” Juncker said.
“The question is to know if we must put an end to the negotiations, which is a purely theoretical question as there are no negotiations.”
Turkey has engaged in EU membership talks for 12 years, but they are at a standstill amid recent tensions between Berlin and Ankara.
“Looking back at the past 12 years since the accession process began, or even further back in time, one could apportion blame to both the EU and Turkey,” Marc Pierini, a former EU ambassador to Turkey who is now at the Carnegie Europe think tank, told Arab News.
“But such considerations have become pointless because of the extraordinary degradation of the rule of law in Turkey.”
Pierini said Juncker and the entire European Council have pointed to Turkey’s recent deviation from EU standards for its own domestic political motives.
“So it’s up to Turkey to come back to an acceptable level of rule of law. I don’t think this will happen because it’s incompatible with Ankara’s concept of a one-man-rule system,” Pierini said.
But Sinem Acikmese, an EU expert at Istanbul’s Kadir Has University, said it is unfair to claim that Turkey is “fully” to blame for the breakdown of the relationship. “It takes two to tango,” she told Arab News.
Juncker is partly right to say Turkey is fast withdrawing from Europe, Acikmese said, as relations have been severely harmed by conditions under the state of emergency since the failed coup attempt in Turkey, specifically regarding violations of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms.
“But the EU isn’t helping at all. This relationship has long been in a stalemate, mostly due to the lack of political will not only in Turkey but also, and even more so, in Europe,” she said,
The EU is not showing Turkey the light at the end of the tunnel in the negotiation process, she added.
Kader Sevinc, representative to the EU of Turkey’s main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), said the bloc’s inner circles know in their hearts that they have been wrong about Turkey “but don’t want to admit they made a mistake.”
She told Arab News: “Unfortunately, the stalled accession process has undermined the EU’s positive role in the transformation of the country, and has played a role in the deterioration of Turkish democracy. Thus the EU must be more consistent toward Turkey, and cognizant of the challenges the country and its progressive forces face.”
But Ankara also has to take substantial steps to restore its democratic credentials, Sevinc said.
“Both parties should know that the blame game will get them nowhere. So it’s incumbent on both sides to come together with a view to putting their mutual house in order and move forward,” she added.
EU: ‘Turkey taking giant steps away from Europe’
EU: ‘Turkey taking giant steps away from Europe’
