Opinion | Columnists
Yes to Turkey, for Europe's sake
Michel Rocard, a towering figure of the French left, has emerged as an eloquent and powerful advocate of Turkey's membership of the European Union.
- By Patrick Seale, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 23:35 November 20, 2008
- Image Credit: Illustration: Nino Jose Heredia/Gulf News
Michel Rocard, a towering figure of the French left, has emerged as an eloquent and powerful advocate of Turkey's membership of the European Union. He has thus thrown down the gauntlet to President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has made no secret of his diehard opposition to Turkish membership.
In terms of French opinion, Rocard seems to be scoring points and winning young people to his views, judging from the enthusiastic attendance at his public lectures, including one in Paris last Monday at France's National Foundation of Political Sciences (known familiarly as Sciences Po), where speaker after speaker rose in support of him.
The subject of Turkish membership is an important one as Europe wrestles with its identity, with its place in a multi-polar world, with its institutions, and with the role it hopes to play in the conflict-ridden Middle East, in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and in its relations both with a newly- assertive Russia and a troubled America, now in the process of reinventing itself under Barack Obama, its new President-elect.
Rocard, 78, is a lifelong socialist. He served as Prime Minister (1988-1991) under the late President Francois Mitterrand, and has been an outspoken deputy of the European Parliament for the past fifteen years.
His long interest in Turkish affairs has now found expression in a campaigning book, Yes to Turkey (In French, Oui à la Turquie), which argues, on its very first page, that Europe's future must involve Turkey, and that Turkish membership of the EU is nothing less than a 'life insurance policy for Europe'.
In making this claim, Rocard is not unaware of Turkey's many problems - its patchy human rights record; its uneven democratic experience, interrupted by military coups in 1960, 1971 and 1980; its ongoing clashes with Kurdish separatists; its difficulty in coming to terms with the legacy of the alleged Armenian massacres of 1915; and its continued occupation of northern Cyprus.
Above all, modern Turkey remains split down the middle. On the one hand are the hardline Kemalists, backed by the army and an urban elite, anxious to protect its privileges. Aggressively secular and ultra-nationalistic, these Kemalists behave as if the state belongs to them.
Ranged against them is the ruling AKP - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Development and Justice Party - whom the Kemalists attempted, but failed, to get banned from public life last July.
AKP's voters - a clear majority in the country - tend to be conservative and Islamic in lifestyle and tradition, but they have embraced the party's reformist and democratic platform, its pro-Europe orientation, and the economic prosperity which its policies have brought the country. The AKP has survived in power but the often violent opposition of some Kemalists makes for unstable politics.
Gradual integration
Notwithstanding these problems, Rocard boldly asserts that Turkey should become a full member of the European Union by 2023 - the one hundredth anniversary of the foundation of the Turkish Republic by Kemal Ataturk, after the Ottoman Empire's defeat and dismemberment in the First World War.
He suggests that the 15 years until 2023 should be devoted to the 'gradual integration' of Turkey into the EU by means of a succession of association agreements, which would serve to harmonise various Turkish practices with European norms, beginning with such subjects as education, culture, research, and the protection of the environment.
In the meantime, Turkey could be associated from the very start with Europe's external security policies, thus contributing to the EU's immediate geostrategic goals.
In order to reassure European opinion about the dangers of embracing a partly-backward Muslim country of 80 million people, Rocard proposes a number of safeguards. First, the EU's borders would not be open to the free movement of Turkish workers until 2023, and even then only in a controlled manner; secondly, there would be no Turkish claim on the EU for structural funds until the 2021-2027 budget; and thirdly, Turkey would have no right of veto in European institutions until 2023, although it could send observers to the EU's Council of Ministers, to the European Commission and to the European Parliament, and thus take part in the EU's democratic debate.
What then are the main arguments in favour of Turkey's EU membership?
Perhaps the most compelling reason is the need for Europe and the West to rebuild bridges to the Islamic world. Christians and Muslims, Rocard argues, are at present living in a period of grave mutual incomprehension. A billion Muslims feel that they are accused of complicity with terrorism by one and a half billion Christians! The policies of America's outgoing President George W Bush, he says, have deeply offended Muslim countries, driving them into a tragic and dangerous anti-Westernism.
Europe cannot afford to be seen as an exclusive 'Christian Club'. That would be a defeat for secularism and would encourage the rise of religious identities - such as plagued Ireland for generations, one might add, and continues to plague a country like Lebanon. In any event, Europe has within its boundaries some 15 to 20 million citizens of Islamic faith. Many of these Muslim citizens feel alienated and excluded from the tolerance for which Europe prides itself. Are they forever to be considered foreigners?
To bring a major Muslim nation like Turkey into the EU would be the best way to prove that Europe was seeking a true understanding with the world of Islam.
Crucial role
Rocard believes that Turkey can play a crucial role in making peace between Arabs and Israelis, since it has managed to have balanced relations with both sides for years. It has recently been brokering indirect talks between Israel and Syria. Turkey has also offered its services as an intermediary between Iran and the US.
Another of Rocard's arguments is that Turkey is the key to the Central Asian states of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrghzstan and, beyond the Caspian, to Azerbaijan. These former Soviet republics speak a Turkic language and are culturally influenced by Turkey. They contain vast quantities of oil to which Europe needs access. Turkey's membership of the EU, Rocard believes, would make a European presence in Central Asia more acceptable.
In spite of the EU's success in providing a model of democratic government, economic coordination and respect for human rights, Rocard is sceptical of Europe's ability to develop into a strong and cohesive political power. The tug of rival national sovereignties is still too strong, he believes, as is the reluctance of member states to increase defence spending.
But, with a combined strength of over one million men, Turkey's armed forces are the second largest standing force after the United States. The inclusion of the Turkish armed forces into the European Military Framework would enable the European Union to become a true global player - even a superpower. This would certainly be a valuable asset in an unstable world.
Patrick Seale is a commentator and author of several books on Middle East affairs.
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