Yayin Tarihi: 19 Ocak/JAnuary 1998
TURKEY'S PLACE IN THE NEW ARCHITECTURE OF EUROPE
An Updated Assessment
By
Mehmet ÖGÜTÇÜ
Jean Monnet Fellow
October 1992 Bruges & Paris
Continued from Part-I - 16 Ocak/January 1998
II. TURKEY IN EUROPE
1- HISTORIC ORIENTATION TOWARDS EUROPE -- Turkey's European identity has always been a controversial matter of discussion, not only among scholars, politicians and ordinary people in Europe, but also among those in Turkey. Before elabo- rating on Turkey's Europeanness, it might therefore be useful to take a look at what the word "Europe" means. The word "Europe" has been often used and misused, interpreted and misinterpreted, as almost any word in any language. There have been many Europes: the Europe of Greek mythology; the Europe of geographers - the two extreme western peninsulas of the Asian land mass; the Europe of the Carolingian Empire; the Europe of Byzantium; the old definition of "capitalist" Europe and "socialist" Europe; the Europe of self-styled national states and of disaffected national minorities. That is not certainly an exhaustive list. Seton-Watson reminds that the basic EC territory was the former Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne. Gradually this neo-Carolingian Empire has been extended, but with increasing pontifications as each new recruit was added. Attitudes to the concept of Europe today have striking similarities to those of the distant past. According to Seton- Watson, the two dichotomies of lands of civilization and barbarism and lands of the true believers and the infidels reappear under new names. As old conceptions are fading away and enlargement process gains momentum once again, Europe is moving on towards a new type of definition, determined not only by geographical, religious and cultural con- siderations. Many believe that universal values will hopefully prevail over narrow national, religious and cultural limitations, if Europe is to have a future.
Towards the middle of the last century there began a sweeping movement of moder- nisation or 'Europeanisation' of the Ottoman Turks. For centuries the Ottoman Sultans and their military-administrative elite (recruited by an intensive training process mostly from Balkan Christians) had ruled over the most extensive and most durable empire this side of China and after the fall of Rome. From the vantage point, the Ottoman Turks looked with disdain and amusement upon their European neighbours, who seemed backward in their religion which contained shocking traces of polytheism and anthropomorphism, under- developed in the arts and sciences, regrettably fanatical in their perennial squabbles among Orthodox, Catholic, Bogumil, Lutheran, Calvinist and Unitarian. But by 1683 the Ottoman advance in Europe had been halted and by 1774 plainly reversed. The first serious attempt for reforms began way back in 1718, when the Sultan of the time agreed that Turkey must have a better army and sent an envoy to Paris to see how the French did it. It was resumed in the Tanzimat period of the mid-19th Century (the word means "changing the structure", exactly the Gorbachev's Perestroika). Historically speaking, the Turks came quite a long way from Central Asia and the gates of Anatolia were opened to them with the defeat of a Byzantine army in 1071. It took the Turks another 200 years to control Anatolia completely. They had crossed the Dardanelles in 1346 and twice besieged Vienna. Yet despite this long confrontation with Europe, or more likely because of it, the Turks were the first Muslim people to make a meaningful attempt at the creation of an efficient modern society. They saw that they had fallen behind the Western world and they wanted to reorganise themselves to catch up with Europe. The Paris Congress (1856) admitted the Ottoman Empire to the public law of Europe. Thus, the Ottoman Turks had since been actively engaged in European affairs for the past 600 years, sometimes in alliance but mostly in confrontation.
From the moment he created modern Republic of Turkey out of the ashes of the collapsed Ottoman Empire, Kemal Ataturk set himself the task of defining the nature of the Turkish state. He had a strong vision of what the values and norms of that state should be: it should be independent, modern, industrialised, Europe-oriented, secular and attached to the famous foreign policy motto of "peace at home, peace abroad". He cultivated good relations with the Soviet Union in 1920's. He took Turkey into a major alliance, the Balkan Pact, in 1934. Nevertheless, from the conclusion of the Lausanne Treaty in 1923 to the Anglo-Franco-Turkish Treaty of October 1939, Turkey guarded its non-aligned status. It managed to remain directly uninvolved in the Second World War and took its permanent seat in European train in the post-war period. From the early 1950's the geo-strategic sig- nificance of Turkey has been one of the key determinants in its relations with the West.
Geographically, Turkey might not lie in the middle of Europe; but there is no doubt that it is in the hub of the growing economic, political and cultural interdependence. A brief look at its relations with its immediate neighbours may help highlight how modern Turkey manages its geographical context. Iran, as a former imperial state and regional power of broadly similar size, still sees Turkey as a potential competitor for power and influence in the Middle East, the Trans-Caucasia and the Central Asia. The Arab view of Turkey is all the more pejorative, growing as it does out of "a deep sense of inferiority and bitterness at its past centuries of subjugation to the Ottoman core". Arguably, since 1974 Cyprus crisis, Turkey's relations with Iraq, Iran and Syria have been subject to greater change and uncertainty than those with Greece or the Soviet Union. From Turkey's point of view, all three share certain characteristics which are potentially problematic. They have regional leadership aspirations as well as possessing the resources to give substance to these ambitions. All three share common borders with Turkey. All three states are formally and instinctively anti-Western, while Turkey is not only formally aligned with the West through its membership of all European organisations, but its political, economic and military elites identify profoundly with the West. For many of the regimes in the Islamic world whose legitimacy rests on their commitment to upholding the faith, such as Saudi Arabia, the laicism of Turkey has been perceived as at best an object of suspicion, at worst an alter- native model of government capable of subverting the power of traditional regimes. Turkey is the first and only secular country in the world of Islam. Not only geographically, but also culturally, it is a bridge between Europe and Asia - to be more exact, a cultural bridge between Eastern and Western civilizations. There is no question that being placed among various geographical and historical cultures, Turkey stands a good chance of producing a new cultural synthesis for the coming age of the "Third Wave". It is not very far- fetched to view the development of the Turkish culture as a dichotomy which will eventually reach a new synthesis: the development of traditional Islamic culture on the one hand and the development of a modern culture, which can be called "western" or "contemporary" on the other. Thus, not only the French, Russian and Chinese revolutions, but also the Libyan, and Iranian revolutions had their (in some cases negligibly limited) effects on Turkish society. All the political and ideological trends such as Marxism, Trotskyism, Euro- communism, social democracy, parliamentary democracy, ethnicism and Islamicism, which are often different in nature and indeed antithetical in relation to one another, have been experienced. Turkey has as much, if not more, in common with its immediate European neighbours than with the societies of Asia: the Euphrates, rather than the Bosphorous, makes a sharper frontier.
Modern Turkey has sought entry to a variety of clubs of states to both east and west. As a result, it is a member of the Council of Europe, the OECD, the NATO, and the CSCE and associate members of the EC and - before the end of this year - the WEU on the one hand, and the Islamic Conference Organisation (ICO) on the other. As part of its regional co-operation efforts, Ankara has pioneered the creation of the Black Sea Economic Co- operation Zone among the littoral and neighbouring states of the Black Sea. Ankara is the driving economic force behind the Economic Co-operation Organisation (ECO), which brings together Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and some Central Asian Republics. In this way, and in claiming to be part of both the secular and the Islamic worlds, Turkey has sought to make the best of its foothold in two continents. Its place in both the Council of Europe and the ICO had led to repeated arguments that it is a 'bridge' from one continent to another, from one culture to another. Turkey does, of course, provide a bridge between Europe and Asia, and much traffic between the two crosses the sub-continent at this point, understanding both continents and both cultures and hence having a unique role as interpreter to both. The notion of Turkey as a bridge between East and West is nowadays becoming more relevant in the economic rather than in the political context. Turkish economic initiatives in the Black Sea region and the Balkans as well as in the Near East are destined to make Turkey a more promising economic partner for Europe, regardless of its EC status.
The Western visitor to Turkey is likely to be unprepared for what he finds. His mental images of the land and the people are coloured by such words as "oriental" or "Middle East". History has told him/her of the "Terrible Turk" who under the Ottoman Empire ruled large parts of the Mediterranean, the Middle East, the Eastern Europe and the Holy Land and finally was driven back into the Asia Minor during the nineteenth century. The collective memory in Europe was that of the "Barbarian Turks" who had not only ruled over southeastern Europe and the Balkans for centuries, but also had carried the banner of Islam to the heartland of Christian civilization. The general sentiment of most Europeans, particularly when its possible membership of the European Community comes to the fore, is clear-cut: "the Turks do not belong with us". It is true that the Turks are 95 % Muslims and this somehow influences the way they think and behave. But unless the Community is going to say that its membership is confined only to nations of Christian faith or, even more oddly, to people born on one side of the dotted line that separated Hero from Leander, this does not automatically disqualify the Turks.
Turkey has good claim to be considered as a candidate-member of the Europe of ideas, if not the Europe of formal geography. The country was put on its present path towards European integration in the 1950's, when it joined the then OEEC, the NATO and the Council of Europe. But the connections go back much further still. Consider first a historical fact. Turkey is the successor of the Byzantine and East Roman Empires in the life of Europe. Out of the past 2500 years much or all of the place now called Turkey has been politically, economically and culturally an extension of Europe for roughly two-thirds of the time, and under the control of a people who came out of Asia for only a third of the time. The Turks who came out of Asia a millennium or so ago were altered by what they found when they got to Anatolia. In Ankara, for instance, the Temple of August stands back to back with the mosque of Haci Bayram; Cappadocia is dotted with Byzantine chapels; the west coast has probably more classical Greek ruins than Greece itself. The mixture of Turkish new comers with the already assorted population of Anatolia and later with the Balkan peoples has produced a collection of faces and a variety of cultures visibly different from anything else in Asia. Turkey has a unique mix of Western and Eastern cultures. Because the culture of the modern Turks still retains precious elements from their past, what it has to contribute is not only conformity but also originality, "a new and richly coloured strand in the tapestry."
It is generally acknowledged that the Turks are already a permanent part of the European scene. This is beyond dispute. Millions came in the 1960s and 70s to work. There are today nearly 3 million Turks - most of them, though not all, first generation immigrants in Western Europe. The Turks constitute the largest immigrant group in Germany. They regard where they live as their home rather than as temporary place of abode. 60 percent of the Turks have been, for example, in Germany more than ten years. For the second generation, the tendency to regard Europe as their home is naturally even stronger. They no longer have language difficulties and are increasingly better educated. Another interesting phenomenon is that more and more Turkish immigrants are building up independent businesses. They are increasingly becoming an important factor in the economies of the EC countries and of Turkey. However, opportunities for them to participate in national and local politics are extremely limited, although many immigrants become members of political parties. They are not yet given the right to vote or stand even in local elections. It can be argued that a three million-strong presence of Turkish immigrants represents an organic link between Turkey and Western Europe which did not exist a few decades ago.
The Turks also assert that none of the present member-state of the EC have let themselves be inhibited by any disparities of culture or of religion from allying themselves with Turkey whenever their interests coincided. France led the way in 1535 when King Francois I concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent. Then came Britain, France and Italy in 1854, Germany in 1914, Britain and France in 1939, Greece in 1938, 1954 and 1960, NATO in 1952. Turkey's sacrifices during the 1991 Gulf War are still vivid in minds. Nor should it be forgotten that the Ottoman Empire, at a low point in its history, was called the sick man of Europe; not the sick man of Asia. The Turks are Europeans because they chose to be, even before Ataturk set their face westwards nearly seventy years ago. Turkey's European credentials have already and repeatedly been established. It is, however, only natural that this debate will continue to re-surface so long as Turkey's membership of the Community remains high on the European agenda. Turkey's major handicap in Europe is, to our mind, in part a kind of prejudice which has deep roots. The Turks quite often complain that "Europe does not understand us". ("To what extent do we know or understand Europe ?", responds Turkey's famous essayist, Cetin Altan, who makes a clear distinction between Euro-Turks striving to integrate with Europe and Asian Turks advocating a leadership role in Turkic and Islamic world). This is in part due to the centuries-old image of the Ottoman Turkey as a conquering, 'barbaric', Islamic threat to Europe and in part because of the mere lack of appreciation in Europe of modern Turkey. European history textbooks still perpetuate a negative and distorted image of this country. The 'guest' workers, who, mostly from the backward areas of Turkey, had been invited to contribute to the post-war reconstruction of Europe, certainly did not inspire a favourable thought about Turkey. And more recently, the 1980 military intervention, the resultant inflow of political asylum-seekers to Europe, the anti-Turkey campaign of the Kurdish activists and Greece's persistent efforts to blacken Turkey at every possible opportunity have all contributed to the further deterioration of Ankara's image in the eyes of most Europeans. Reflecting what is believed to be the true picture of modern Turkey requires a huge and long-standing publicity campaign by Turkey which must be backed by a series of genuine political and economic reforms. The current government has promised to do so and already started to fulfil some of its wide-ranging promises. The priority in reforms has been accorded to those areas that will primarily improve economic-social conditions in the south-east region of the country, where most of Turkey's Kurdish-origin citizens live. Amendments in the constitution and the laws are already under way to ensure full democratisation in the spheres of political, trade union and press freedoms. These reforms should be swiftly carried out so as to disperse the prevalent scepticism about Turkey's democratic credentials in Europe. For Turkey to progress and play a greater, positive, role in its own region, it is necessary for it to solve through democratic means its Kurdish problem without any delay.
In our view there is much work to be done to bring about wider appreciation of modern Turkey. A correct, professional and popularised campaign is needed to enlighten public and official opinion about the reasons for the Turkish quest for full EC membership and the reasons why Europe should respond favourably to it. The creation of a sympathetic constituency to this effect in every corner of Europe - from business world to mass media, from universities to parliaments, from cultural circles to trade unions - remains a precondition if Turkey is resolute in its ultimate goal to attain the Community membership before the end of this millennium. Its resultant implications will help pave the ground for a smooth accession.
2- THE COMMUNITY'S OLDEST ASSOCIATE MEMBER -- Turkey's decision to link its future to that of Europe is, as we set out above, not a new one, but an intensive relationship of nearly 700 years. Turkey was among the first countries, in the post-Second World War period, joining all the movements of European integration. And in August 1959, only two years after the signing of the Treaties of Rome, it presented its request to the EEC for a special associate status with the eventual goal of full membership. The negotiations between Turkey and the EC began on 28 September 1959, but took two years longer than the Greek negotiations, culminating in the Ankara Association Agreement on 12 September 1963. One reason for these protracted negotiations was the difficulty of finding an association formula which would reconcile economic realities and Turkish aspirations. From the very beginning of the negotiations, the EC tried to offer Greece and Turkey the same association formula. But the fact that Greece could shoulder more economic obligations at that time than Turkey created a serious problem for the Community, which had sought to base the agreements on reciprocal obligations. The advantages and drawbacks were debated at endless EC Council meetings, with Germany always emphasizing the political and strategic reasons for backing Turkish demands. Ankara's demands included free access for its agricultural and industrial exports, $ 500 mn on loan, and a written guarantee of full membership at the end of 22 years. The Ankara Agreement took effect in December 1964 with two principal objectives: the progressive establishment of a customs union and convergence of the signatories' economic policies with, as a final goal, the integration of Turkey into the Community. Article 28 of the Accord stipulates that "once Turkey reaches a point where conformity with Treaty of Rome rules is possible, then the two sides will consider the idea of Turkey's accession to the EC".
a) Commitments within the Association Framework. The Association Agreement laid down three stages for achieving this ultimate goal: an initial preparatory phase of five years (1964-69); a transition period of 12 years to create a customs union and align Turkey's economy policies on those of the EC's and; finally, a third stage for coordinating the two sides' economic, fiscal and competition policies. During the negotiations, Turkey had unsuccessfully tried to insist that the transition from the prepatory period to the transitional period should be automatic. It had good grounds to fear that France and Italy might seize any opportunity to create further difficulties, Rome on agricultural concessions, and Paris on the basic political issue of Turkey's European credentials. To launch the plan, the EC agreed to lift quotas on imports of Turkish tobacco, raisins, nuts and dried figs but laid down restrictions on other agricultural products. Turkey was granted a low-interest loan of ECU 175 mn for the first stage of the Association Agreement. While some progress was made during the initial stage, both sides had to alter the timetable for the secondary transitional phase. During the years that followed the 1967 military coup in Athens, "Turkey exploited the freezing of Greece's Association Agreement" in order to extract a better deal from the Community. Relations had been relatively smooth in late 60s and early 70s. The Additional Protocol, signed in 1970, besides improving the economic terms of Turkey's Association status with the EEC, had also made provision for political consul- tations (Clause 56) once the EEC established the political machinery which was at that time being discussed under the chairmanship of Etienne Davignon. The Nine promised to keep Turkey informed of their political discussions when these were of direct interest to it. The Turkish proposal for taking part in the EPC meetings on such questions as Cyprus was taken up and apparently supported by the then British Foreign Secretary, Dr. David Owen, during the Nyborg meeting of the EC Foreign Ministers in May 1978. However, other EC Ministers felt "it would create an awkward precedent and thus would need further study". The 1970 Additional Protocol defined, among other things, a new entry date for the progressive free circulation of Turkish workers in the EC (1976-1986) as well as a new schedule for the Community dismantling of tariffs and quantitative restrictions in non- agricultural goods from Turkey other than textiles and petroleum products, on which special restrictions were agreed. The EC felt the need to exercise restraint, largely in response to French and Italian pressure. It chose to abide by the principle of Community preference. Turkey, in return, undertook to gradually abolish import tariffs on industrial products from the EC countries over a 12-year period. Here, too, there were exceptions. For about 45 percent of products the transitional period was to be 22 years so as not to jeopardise the development of certain industries in Turkey. Thus, the customs union has been envisaged to be fully effective by 1995, with Turkey gradually introducing the EC's common external tariffs and abolishing quotas on imports from the Community countries. Within the framework of financial co-operation Turkey was awarded loans and grants at five-yearly intervals totalling 680 million units of account up till 1980 in an effort to back up the country's economic modernisation. The projects financed by this scheme were tied to participation of companies from the Community countries.
b) Results and Problems of the Association. Association ties have had disappointing results, which culminated in a generally sad story of relations. The behaviour of both sides has played its part, creating the impression that neither side has been seriously interested in achieving the aims of the Association Agreement. Successive Turkish governments, far from taking measures to strengthen the economy in the preparatory period, followed a policy of laissez-faire. There was not debate in the mass media, no serious public discussion, no meaningful research done by the business circles who should have been the most concerned. Public opinion was almost unanimous in its interpretation of the Ankara Agreement as a political act. On the other side of the coin, the EC established the greatest restrictions for trade in the very sectors in which Turkey was in a strong position to compete in European markets: basically in textiles, clothing and farm products. Disputes over imports of Turkish textile and clothing have been a regular feature of the Association relations since the first Multifibre Arrangement was concluded. Turkey constantly refused to agree to voluntary export restraints until after the Community had unilaterally imposed import quotas. The Turkish viewpoint was, and still is, that if the EC contravenes the Association Agreement in this respect it ought at least to ensure that Turkey as a special partner is granted preferential treatment compared to other non-EC countries in, say, South-East Asia. Another complaint the Turks have repeatedly levelled at the EC is that its preferential status has been, to a great extent, eroded by the many treaties and agreements between the EC and third countries as well as by the introduction of the General System of Preferences. The enlargement of the Community with the accession of Britain, Ireland and Denmark also had an adverse effect on EC-Turkish relations. The preoccupation with internal structural and economic problems overshadowed the 'special' relationship of the Six with Turkey. For the new members, Turkey was just another Mediterranean country with no special status. The new Mediterranean policy that the EC formulated had further upset the delicate balances. The Turkish military intervention of 1974 in Cyprus was another factor in the deterioration of its privileged status vis-a-vis the Nine. A constant trade deficit was recorded with the EC - $ 1.7 bn in 1975 against $ 500 mn in 1973. Global developments taking place from the early 1970s also played their part in reducing Brussels' interest in special relations with Turkey. Germany, in particular, created the greatest difficulties in these relations. It was in fact largely a keen German interest that led to the provisions on free movement of labour being specified explicitly in the Association Agreement. But, with the German labour market undergoing a fundamental change, Bonn has become the most fervent opponent of the entry into force of this legal Community commitment.
Turkey's main shortcoming has been its failure to draw consequences for national economic and development policies from its Treaty commitment to aim at an eventual membership. The EC affairs remained in general the major preoccupation of a narrow professional and politician circle with little interest among other segments of the society. Since the early-1960's up till January 1990, its development plans had aimed at an inward- looking import substitution strategy , irreconcilable with the logic of gradually setting up a full customs union and accessing one day to the Community. Brussels was not really convinced about Ankara's commitment to the aims of the Association. Soon after the signature of the 1970 Additional Protocol, the EC-Turkish relations tended to deteriorate. Advantages that Turkey had expected to enjoy from its associate status had proved illusory. The Turkish alienation from the Association had reached its climax in 1978 when the social democrat Ecevit government proposed a five-year moratorium on the trade provisions. The Community accepted this proposal (with great pleasure and relief!) and extended it to agricultural produce and free movement of labour. At that time, the general belief was that both sides had chosen, from the start, unsuitable means for pursuing their interests, which gave rise to some feelings of bitterness on either side. Turkey, in hesitation due to internal political turmoil at the time of the Greek application to join the Community in the later part of the 1970's, lost a golden opportunity to enhance its prospect of membership.
c) Consequences of the Southern Enlargement. This bleaky state of affairs was influenced for the worse by a successful Greek attempt to join the Community, followed later by the Iberian enlargement. The Turks became seriously concerned, not without justification, that southern enlargement would establish political and economic 'fait accomplis' to their detriment. Turkey has found itself in direct competition with the new members, especially in respect of Mediterranean produce such as citrus fruits, fruit, vegetables and grapes (traditional exports of hazelnuts, cotton and dried figs less affected). In the industrial sectors, competition from Spanish, Portuguese and Greece, too, has become more clearly felt. Special problems have arisen in connection with Turkish textiles and clothing exports (particularly with Portugal), foodstuffs, chemicals, glass and ceramics, cement, iron & steel and petro-chemical products. Trade was not the only sector which Turkey faced the threat of losses. Besides, the prospects of exporting labour had been further worsened by the southern enlargement. The Turkish attitude toward relations with
the Community has been, to some extent, influenced by its political relations with Greece since 1959. The adverse impacts of the Greek accession on Turkey are to be addressed later while discussing the factors which affect the Turco-Community relations.
Efforts to re-activate the relationship were made in early 1980 when Turkey and the Community had agreed to launch a new series of initiatives to improve their stagnant relationship. The then Demirel government announced that it would apply for the full EC membership by the end of 1980. Nevertheless, that application had failed to materialise because, in September 1980, the military stepped in and seized power. Indeed, the military intervention brought the Turco-Community relations more or less to a halt. The ensuing political restrictions and the accusations of human rights violations in the 1980's made Turkey a prime target of suspicion in Brussels, especially among members of the European Parliament. The Fourth Financial Protocol and its special ECU 600 mn package of aid was suspended in 1981 (still on hold). Although civilian rule and democracy was restored following the 1983 elections, the relations were not swiftly revived. The Association Agreement remained largely inactive. Problems were made worse by Greece's persistent obstructions in every EC forum on all the issues concerning Turkey. In a bid to put a decisive brake to its deteriorating relations with the Community, Turkey had signalled, during the September 1986 Association Council meeting, its intention to go ahead with its long-expected application for full membership, which has opened a new chapter in relations.
Prior to analyzing the reasons which led to Turkey's application for the Community membership and the evasive response that it received in December 1989, it might be more appropriate to put the newly emerging economic, political and security architecture in perspective. Then, in the light of this new, still evolving situation, perhaps a better explanation may be offered as regards the current state of affairs and the future prospects in the so-far-uneasy relationship between the Community and Turkey.
III- EMERGING NEW ARCHITECTURE OF EUROPE
(19 Ocak/January 1998)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
of this article
ULUSLARARASI iLiSKiLER-STRATEJiK ÇALISMALAR'a dön
