site.btaTurkey’s Long Way to the EU

In the last few trying days for the whole world Turkey, stepping as it does on two continents, continued to have an active part in a number of international issues, particularly in ones related to the crisis in Ukraine. Although the Turkish authorities did officially recognize the events in that country as a war, they are trying to maintain a position of balance in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

On Tuesday, President Recept Tayyip Erdogan called on Russia and Ukraine to cease fighting immediately. He also added that Turkey, a EU accession candidate for decades, would support any enlargement of NATO and the bloc. Nor did he omit his disappointment with the Union’s attitude to his country.

This made frontpage news in Turkish newspapers on Wednesday.

Leading dailies like Hurriyet, Sabah and Aksam raise the issue and quote the president who criticized the EU members as not being "sincere" with Ankara. Turkey’s leader was unequivocal in his call to the EU to show the same sensitivity towards his country as it did for Kyiv’s membership bid.

On Monday, Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called for Ukraine's "immediate accession" to the EU. On Tuesday, the European Parliament adopted a resolution demanding EU candidacy for Ukraine and calling for tougher sanctions in response to the Russian-Ukrainian war. Before that, on Sunday, EC President Ursula von der Leyen said the EU wanted Ukraine to join the bloc, but did not indicate this would be a rapid process.

Turkey, with 3.0 per cent of its territory in Europe and key geostrategic position, as well as accepting nearly 5 million refugees, began official accession negotiations in October 2005. These have practically been frozen for several years because of the country’s unsatisfactory, according to Brussels, progress, including in relation to migration, its relations with neighbouring countries, and the purge undertaken by the authorities after the attempted coup in 2016, among others.

Turkish authorities do not fail to mention their strong disappointment with the “dead end” they have found themselves in, stressing the country’s enormous efforts to meet the required criteria. At the same time, leading EU members like France, Germany and Austria repeated continuously they were quite concerned at the prospect of Turkeys’accession, because of the economic and cultural challenges involved in the addition of a large Muslim state with a population of over 84 million. What is more, last December, the EU General Affairs Council yet again reprimanded Turkey as continuing to drift away from the European Union, adding that any opening or closing negotiation chapters was out of the question.

It seems the situation for Turkey was much more cloudless 17 years ago. The Europeans seemed to think that Erdogan (then prime minister) had made Euro-integration the main priority of his foreign and domestic policy. With this in mind, Ankara adopted several packages of reforms to make Turkish society more democratic and meet EU Copenhagen criteria. These efforts were appreciated and EU leaders decided to launch accession negotiations with Turkey on October 3, 2005, but on several conditions.

The joy at Turkey’s opportunity to accede to the EU, though, was short-lived and the negotiations first stalled, then were practically frozen.    

Nor should it be forgotten that, two years ago, Turkey and EU member Greece were on the brink of military conflict because of disputed zones in the Eastern Mediterranean, and in October 2021 Erdogan threatened to expulse ten western ambassadors, including those of Germany, France and the Netherlands, because of their call to free philanthropist Osman Kavala from prison. Erdogan has also repeatedly threatened that his country, which accepted the largest number of refugees in the world, could open its doors for the migrants to Europe. So far he has not, and will hardly do so.

Nor should one overlook Turkey’s key role to stop the influx of Syrian refugees in Europe and prevent a migrant crisis, made possible after the EU and Turkey signed an agreement for stopping the migrant influx in March 2016. Brussels undertook to provide two tranches of 3 billion euro each to help Turkey accept the refugees.

Now, besides trying to mediate in the resolution of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, Turkey is sending humanitarian aid to Ukraine and is also accepting Ukrainian refugees.

In fact, it is not clear at all whether the EU will notice Erdogan’s criticism regarding Turkey’s accession considering the ongoing critical events, not to mention that public opinion polls show that more and more Turks do not want to join the large European family at all./RY/BR