Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Turkey's path to EU fraught with obstacles
by Claudia Parsons, Reuters English News Service - 01/25/2001
Posted: Monday, January 29, 2001 01:48 am CST

ANKARA, Jan 25 (Reuters) - Turkey's route to European Union membership has left the open road and hit bumpy ground.

Turkish attitudes to Europe have been soured by France's recognition of accusations of genocide against Armenians, while the government's drive to join the EU is mired in corruption allegations and infighting that raise the spectre of elections.

"It would be fair to say they're domestically in a mess and that's affecting their ability to advance the reform agenda," said one senior Western diplomat in Ankara.

Turkey was granted candidacy status by the European Union at the end of 1999 and last year the EU laid out a series of economic, political and human rights reforms it wants to see, based on the so-called "Copenhagen criteria".

Ankara is currently preparing its own programme of action, but the three government coalition parties are split over what measures Turkey should commit itself to.

"There's a fear about the accession partnership - will the Turks actually grasp the fact that we are asking for quite serious across-the-board reforms," the diplomat said. "The things they've got to do are quite clearly laid out in black and white, but I see nothing being done here to comply with that."

The deputy leader of the Nationalist Action Party (MHP) said last week his party maintained its reservations about abolishing the death penalty and a ban on Kurdish language broadcasting.

The government was due to publish its programme last week. Ministers insist there is no delay but the wrangling continues.

A group of non-governmental organisations including the Turkey Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) urged the government this week to accelerate the reform process, warning delays would mean "mortgaging the future" of the country.

"We'd like to see a good deal more from the government to show that it understands the Copenhagen Criteria as reforms that are ends in themselves for our society and not just obstacles in the relationship with the EU," said TESEV director Ozdem Sanberk, a former Turkish ambassador to Britain.

GRAFT PROBES AT HOME, TENSION ABROAD

Meanwhile, the question of reform has been overshadowed domestically by corruption allegations that threaten the most pro-European coalition party, the conservative Motherland.

Party head Mesut Yilmaz says political foes are using graft probes at the Energy Ministry to taint the party. The current minister, like several predecessors, is a member of Motherland.

Four senior officials have been arrested on fraud charges though the minister himself, Cumhur Ersumer, is not accused of wrongdoing.

Professor Hasan Unal of Ankara's Bilkent University said the government was paralysed over Europe because of widely divergent positions between the nationalist MHP and Motherland, and because of the graft allegations.

"We've got a government which doesn't know what to do with regard to the EU," he said.

The graft probes are widely believed to have been initiated by the military, raising the thorny issue of the role of the politically influential army - another bugbear for Europe.

Several other domestic and international stumbling blocks have contributed to political instability and EU tension.

A French parliamentary vote to recognise Armenian allegations of genocide by Ottoman Turks in 1915 has infuriated Ankara, which retaliated by cancelling French arms deals.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Huseyin Dirioz said the Armenian controversy would have no impact on EU relations, but some Turkish newspapers suggested the vote was a conspiracy by EU members to hinder Turkey's entry to the bloc.

Turkey also feels hard done by over Cyprus. U.N.-sponsored talks aimed at reuniting the divided island are stalled over Turkish Cypriot complaints, backed by Ankara, that they are not recognised as equal negotiating partners in the talks process.

As if all that were not enough, NATO-member Turkey frustrated some Europeans in December by blocking a basic agreement between the alliance and the EU on a planned EU rapid reaction force because of fears it would not have enough decision-making power.

"They're not making many friends in Europe with that," the Western diplomat said.

POLITICAL INSTABILITY

Back at home Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit was forced to make a last-minute retreat over plans to liberalise the constitution to make it more difficult to ban political parties, a move that would have boosted Turkey's democratic credentials in Europe.

Though Ecevit says he expects a compromise over the law, it may come too late to save the Islamist opposition Virtue Party.

That could have serious consequences for the government.

Closure of Virtue, if accompanied by the expulsion of its deputies from parliament, could force by-elections and undermine Turkey's most stable government in years. That would threaten a $4 billion IMF-backed disinflation programme involving economic liberalisation that is crucial to Turkey's EU ambitions.

There is little consensus among commentators on whether the Court will accept prosecution claims that Virtue should be banned on the grounds of undermining the secular state.

As with much in Turkey just now, the jury is out.

Related Information...

Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News Archives