Clash of Civilisations :: Wessex Scene Online

Clash of Civilisations

10th February 2006
Alistair Brockbanks

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Turkey first mooted back in 1957 its desire to join the EU; however formal ascension talks didn’t begin until October 2005, half a century later. Whilst allowing Turkey to join the ‘EU club’ is seen by some as a positive step forward, many critics including the EU’s new Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, have argued that Turkey is simply not ready yet.

To put the issue into context, negotiations will take no less than ten years and by no means guarantee EU status. If successful, Turkey will join no earlier than 2020 and will have to conform to 80,000 pages of EU law. In any case, the issue is current and must be judged not solely on religious merits but also from geo-security and democratic standpoints.

Turkey has changed since the days where scenes from the film Midnight Express were commonplace. The death penalty has been abolished, the military has become autonomous and a number of legal amendments have been made. Most significantly, the overt presence of religion in politics has been diminished with the election of secular leaders such as the PM Recep Erdogan, who has made Turkish accession his number one goal alongside "free speech and democracy". The EU frequently used ascension as a carrot leading Turkey to many of these reforms.

Turkey in the EU, it has been argued, would bridge the monumental gap between Islam and the West. An extended EU border would make it easier to engage diplomatically, rather than militarily, with the Middle East, something that can be only advantageous to EU security. Arguments revolving around the harsh treatment by Turkey of its Kurdish population could also be dealt with diplomatically.

The potential economic benefit of Turkish membership is immense. It has a booming economy and by 2020 Turkey will have two-thirds of its population in work while the EU will face most being too young or too old to work. The so-called migrant deluge to Western Europe will be vital in maintaining the dependency ratio and economic growth of Europe.

However, Turkey has a long way to go before it meets many of the EU’s demands and for some it will never be European enough to join. Turkey is culturally dissimilar to the EU; accession could result in "A Clash of Civilisations" (Samuel Huntingdon). Turkey recently put on trial the novelist Orhan Pamuk, simply because he wrote about Turkish WWI atrocities. Free speech in the EU is a fundamental right and until Turkey agrees with this ascension could not conceivably occur.

The Cyprus question must also find resolution; Turkey has now agreed to recognise Cyprus, already an EU member. However, Turkey then dismissively argued that this was not tantamount to a diplomatic recognition. If it cannot fully recognise a part of the EU, then how could any attempt at membership be taken seriously? There are also arguments concerning Turkey’s size: if it joined it would be the biggest nation in the EU but with a far more backward economy then even the new member states. For many Turkey is, at present, too big and too poor to join.

Turkish accession would, on balance, benefit the EU, however, Turkey must first overcome several large and fundamental hurdles in the quest to become a fully-fledged EU state. Austria’s argument for a ‘privileged partnership’ is flawed and similar arguments are based around Jacques Delor’s ‘EU Christian Club’ desire. That said, without Turkish reform it might stay that way for sometime to come.