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October 02, 2005
Not a privilege
It looks like Turkey's EU accession odyssey has reached an impasse, courtesy of Austria:
European Union foreign ministers have failed to end the stalemate over Turkey's bid to join the bloc.
Late-night talks in Luxembourg ended without agreement on a negotiating framework to open talks with Turkey, which were due to begin on Monday.
Austria wants the EU to consider giving Turkey "favoured nation" status, but holding off from full membership.
The IHT has a good piece looking at the genuine antipathy Austrians feel toward Turkish accession. On that level, one can't really fault the Austrian government's position -- it's representing the legitimate will of its people.
Erdogan, however is not happy, and justifiably so. Turkish accession has been decades in the making, and for it to be held up after so much recent progress over something like "favoured nation" status or "privileged partnership" is perhaps a monumental mistake on the EU's part. The Turkish PM has long noted that the recent legal and human rights reforms he's pushed through parliament are worthy in their own right, and not simply as a sop to EU demands. To be sure, even if the accession falls flat on its face, the reforms already enacted -- and those that we could trust Erdogan to continue to pursue -- would mark a success of EU foreign policy.
But if matters came to that, the ultimate harm -- in Europe, Turkey, and the world over -- would dwarf any good in Turkey alone. Harmful stereotypes of the EU as a Christian-only club would be confirmed, Turkish moderates would lose much of their rationale for recent reform, and the case that the West and Islam are incompatible would be much strengthened. The precise consequences of a collapse of the accession process beyond that are hard to predict, but imagining any good coming from it would be even harder.
As it is, the accessions negotiations would take no less than 10-15 years, giving plenty of time for hesitant countries such as Austria to reconcile their legitimate concerns with reality. More importantly, it enables today's politicians to pass the buck to tomorrow's. And to be sure, Austria is not alone in its wariness to Turkish entry. But to pitch "privileged partnership" today represents a blatant rebuff of Turkish good intentions that stretch back decades. It's hard to fathom how the Austrian government could even imagine that the option would be palatable to a politician as stubborn as Erdogan and a people as proud as the Turks.
There will likely be much movement on this front in the coming hours and days. Very possibly, a temporary solution will be reached that pleases no one but, more importantly, offends no one, either. But the language emanating from the Turkish government has been increasing definitive in recent months, and justifiably so. "Privileged partnership" may well represent the last straw.
Posted by Daniel Widome at 11:14 PM to Europe
