Talking Turkey

A Still-European Union

Wolfgang Schauble

David Phillips is right to argue that "Turkey is a crucial ally for the West" ("Turkey's Dreams of Accession," September/October 2004) but wrong to claim that only full membership in the EU will preserve that relationship.

The EU, as a community of nations and values, is too important to be subjected to this kind of merely strategic, functional reasoning. The case for Turkish entry into the EU must be judged on its own merits, which Phillips largely ignores. Although he warns of adverse consequences if Turkey is rejected from the union, he fails to consider the consequences of acceptance. Would an EU with Turkey as a member be able to continue building an ever closer political union or speak with one voice?

Today's European Union has an enormously complex structure, to which independent states have handed over impressive parts of their sovereignty-defying doubts, for example, about the introduction and success of a single currency. The process of integration is ongoing: big steps forward are currently being made in the fields of justice and home affairs and in developing a common defense system, which might lead one day to a common army. Such a high degree of integration cannot continue, however, if the union keeps expanding. It is time, in other words, to start thinking about limiting the EU's size.

Rather than simply shutting the door, however, Europe should start thinking seriously about new frameworks for cooperation with outside states: arrangements that would bring maximum benefits to all sides without endangering the EU itself. This is what is meant by a "privileged partnership," and this is what should be considered for Turkey.

Advocating partnership over membership does not imply any prejudice against Turkey or Turkish society. Phillips is right that Turkey's development since World War I has been enormous, and unique. The country has come a long way since emancipating itself from its Ottoman legacy. As Phillips rightly points out, Turkey deserves enormous credit for its success in protecting its constitution and secular society as well as its Muslim heritage. Turkey has made immense progress recently in improving its democratic structures and human rights record. The country's courageous prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has taken bold steps toward the West at a time when the situations in Iraq and Cyprus have not made doing so easy.

Phillips seems to feel that, given these efforts and Turkey's ardent desire to join the EU, the only possible reason to reject it must have to do with religion. He is certainly not the first to argue that Europe's reluctance to admit Turkey stems from the latter's Muslim nature. Indeed, the EU has been called a "club of Christians" more than once. Repetition does not make the charge more accurate, however. Phillips himself cannot prove this allegation, and a look at European societies undermines that claim-as does the recently approved text of the European constitution, which avoids emphasizing Christianity alone.

Phillips' allegation that Europe's Christian Democratic parties are particularly responsible for the EU's reluctance to embrace Turkey is likewise unsubstantiated. Indeed, Erdogan's own Justice and Development Party has sought to establish close ties to Germany's Christian Democrats and membership in the European People's Party, an umbrella group for all European Christian Democrats. A far more likely explanation for Europe's hesitation to admit Turkey is an awareness of the potential problems that could arise from the integration of a country that shares hundreds of miles of borders with Syria and Iran into a union that, among many other things, all but guarantees freedom of movement for all individuals. Are Turkey's citizens even aware of the scope of sovereignty that they would have to hand over to EU institutions if they joined the union? Today Turkey is an extraordinarily important bridge between Europe and the Middle East. But full integration into the EU would put Turkey, a NATO partner, in a difficult and not entirely foreseeable position.

INTEGRATING ISN'T EASY

The European Union today finds itself at one of the most crucial points of its history. The integration of the ten new member states will be a monumental task, although the benefits should also be enormous: bringing peace and stability to parts of the European continent from which they have long been conspicuously absent.

No one should underestimate, however, the political risks and economic costs inherent in this process. Europe risks overstretching itself. It has given itself an ambitious task and should concentrate first and foremost on accomplishing that task. This will not be possible if the European project loses support from Europe's citizens, who are already feeling fatigued. Now is therefore not the time to decide on more new members-especially Turkey, a country that could soon have a bigger population than any EU member state's and that would require substantial assistance before its economic structure could be brought into Europe's. Instead, what the EU needs to do right now is consolidate.

A "privileged partnership" between Turkey and the EU is therefore the only realistic option for the near future. Phillips, who must know that actual accession is, at best, still a long way off, nonetheless argues that talks should be started now, so as to give reform-minded people in Ankara the momentum necessary to continue on their path to reform. He explains,