TURKEY AND THE EU
In 1975 in Great Britain there was a referendum on our continued membership of the then Common Market. I may be unique in that I commenced that campaign a convinced member of the Britain Out element of that campaign ending it walking through the Yes lobby. I had become a convinced European. Many things changed my mind, most significantly the sheer nauseating xenophobia of the get Britain out movement, embracing both Enoch Powell and the National Front. Even as a somewhat naive nineteen year old I knew the kind of bedfellows whose company I no longer wished to keep. Despite all its very great imperfections I have never regretted my decision to attach my loyalty to this great experiment in European unity. During the tumultuous intervening years the union has expanded far beyond the dreams of its founding members, extending into countries far to the east of the European continent, including Bulgaria a country that I know and for whom I have a particular love.
Now for sometime there has been a country knocking at the door, I speak of Turkey. Now Turkey arrives with a very different tradition to that of the states of the European continent, though is not wholly alien to the European continent having been a former colonial power, occupying Bulgaria, Serbia and great swathes of Eastern Europe for over 500 years. At its zenith the Ottoman Empire was knocking on the door of Vienna itself.
Well this is what empires do; we all carry this legacy, victims and perpetrators alike, there comes a point at which it is time to move on. The Turkey of today is not the Turkey of the Ottoman Empire and it would like to join us and this request should be taken seriously.
The British government, both present and previous has expressed both strong support and enthusiasm for Turkey’s EU membership. So how does Turkey choose to reciprocate? Well yesterday saw the visit to London of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan , the press conference that followed consisting for the most part of a tantrum, an extended whinge by Mr Erdogan, to the effect that the EU was now being nasty to Turkey; of measured self analysis there was none,
Turkeys ruling party is currently The Justice and Development Party, or AKP, a party with roots in the Islamic movement, albeit on its moderate wing, if that is not an Oxymoron. It presides over a state in which it is an offence to refer to The Armenian Genocide which, prior to the holocaust, represented one of the greatest crimes in modern history, people have been tried and convicted of this ‘offence.’ It continues to occupy Northern Cyprus, creating a puppet state there that only Turkey recognises. * Currently the government of Turkey is engaged in a covert war against secular Turks exemplified by the Ergenekon case in which ‘...since 2007, 300 people have been detained during the investigation of an underground group known as Ergenekon, including a writer of erotic novels, four-star generals and other military, professors, editors and underworld figures — some of whom appear to have committed no offence greater than speaking in favour of Turkey as a secular state.’#
It is a country that continues to persecute the Kurdish minority in its borders and which tried to veto the appointment of a Dutch chief of NATO in the shape of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a consequence of Mr Rasmussen’s refusal to either attempt to censor the Danish press, unconstitutional under Danish law, or to apologise for the so called Danish cartoons affair.
Erdogan is also a man who has described democracy as a bus that you can get on until you arrive where you want to get to, then you can get off! Not the most reassuring of statements.
Does this sound like a country you want to embrace within the collective of states that is the EU? I would argue not.
Now I would continue to seek to support democratic forces within Turkey and any special trading conditions that a vibrant Turkish economy might require, if appropriate, but Turkey is not an appropriate candidate currently for the EU and is unlikely to be any time soon.
*Britain’s role both historically in Cyprus in general and in the Turkish invasion in particular represent particularly shameful episodes in British history.
# New York Times November 22nd 2009.
Now for sometime there has been a country knocking at the door, I speak of Turkey. Now Turkey arrives with a very different tradition to that of the states of the European continent, though is not wholly alien to the European continent having been a former colonial power, occupying Bulgaria, Serbia and great swathes of Eastern Europe for over 500 years. At its zenith the Ottoman Empire was knocking on the door of Vienna itself.
Well this is what empires do; we all carry this legacy, victims and perpetrators alike, there comes a point at which it is time to move on. The Turkey of today is not the Turkey of the Ottoman Empire and it would like to join us and this request should be taken seriously.
The British government, both present and previous has expressed both strong support and enthusiasm for Turkey’s EU membership. So how does Turkey choose to reciprocate? Well yesterday saw the visit to London of the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan , the press conference that followed consisting for the most part of a tantrum, an extended whinge by Mr Erdogan, to the effect that the EU was now being nasty to Turkey; of measured self analysis there was none,
Turkeys ruling party is currently The Justice and Development Party, or AKP, a party with roots in the Islamic movement, albeit on its moderate wing, if that is not an Oxymoron. It presides over a state in which it is an offence to refer to The Armenian Genocide which, prior to the holocaust, represented one of the greatest crimes in modern history, people have been tried and convicted of this ‘offence.’ It continues to occupy Northern Cyprus, creating a puppet state there that only Turkey recognises. * Currently the government of Turkey is engaged in a covert war against secular Turks exemplified by the Ergenekon case in which ‘...since 2007, 300 people have been detained during the investigation of an underground group known as Ergenekon, including a writer of erotic novels, four-star generals and other military, professors, editors and underworld figures — some of whom appear to have committed no offence greater than speaking in favour of Turkey as a secular state.’#
It is a country that continues to persecute the Kurdish minority in its borders and which tried to veto the appointment of a Dutch chief of NATO in the shape of Anders Fogh Rasmussen as a consequence of Mr Rasmussen’s refusal to either attempt to censor the Danish press, unconstitutional under Danish law, or to apologise for the so called Danish cartoons affair.
Erdogan is also a man who has described democracy as a bus that you can get on until you arrive where you want to get to, then you can get off! Not the most reassuring of statements.
Does this sound like a country you want to embrace within the collective of states that is the EU? I would argue not.
Now I would continue to seek to support democratic forces within Turkey and any special trading conditions that a vibrant Turkish economy might require, if appropriate, but Turkey is not an appropriate candidate currently for the EU and is unlikely to be any time soon.
*Britain’s role both historically in Cyprus in general and in the Turkish invasion in particular represent particularly shameful episodes in British history.
# New York Times November 22nd 2009.
