Turkey and the EU - September 29, 2004

C. Farrugia asks: Should Turkey join the EU?

The saga of Turkey's prospective accession to the EU will take a new twist in the coming days when the European Commission will publish a report on the country's eligibility for membership. The report is expected to recommend the opening of entry negotiations.

To my mind, the debate on whether Turkey should join the EU has been somewhat overtaken by events and it is now rather late to argue against Turkey's membership on grounds of principle.

Turkey joined the Council of Europe way back in 1949, more than 15 years before us. In 1963, it signed an Association Agreement with the EU that clearly offered the prospect of membership. In 1999, it was officially recognised as an "EU candidate country". And since 2002 Turkey has been repeatedly told that if it fulfils the political conditions for membership the EU would open accession negotiations without delay.

So how can the EU now impose additional conditions or tell Turkey that it ought to join some other union of states because it is "not European"?

The decision on whether negotiations with Turkey should be launched - and eventually on whether Turkey will join - should be taken solely on the consideration of the membership conditions that have been applied in the case of other countries. Fairness dictates that we cannot change the goalposts or rewrite the entry conditions.

The conditions for membership include political criteria which mean that a candidate country must respect human rights, the rule of law, democracy and minority rights. Satisfying these political conditions is a prerequisite not just for membership but also for starting entry talks.

So the issue should not be whether Turkey should join as a matter of principle but, more likely, whether Turkey is making satisfactory progress in fulfilling the entry conditions.

On this score, of course, we must await the report of the European Commission and I expect the Commission to give us a fair, objective and studied report on Turkey's performance. The Commission's conclusion should not be coloured by the personal political bias of individual commissioners; it must be solely influenced by a rigorous assessment of Turkey's performance.

It is in the Union's interest to ensure that no country joins the EU without serious assurances that the entry conditions are fully respected.

My view is that over the years Turkey's implementation record has not been convincing. Although in the last two-and-a-half years Turkey has enacted substantive legal reform packages, implementation on the ground still lags behind.

There is strong evidence to support this view. Reports from Freedom House, the Turkish Human Rights Association (IHD), Amnesty International, the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe and the European Commission itself all point to serious shortcomings - at least until just some time ago.

So it may be early to speak about the permanence of the changes and it may be prudent to allow more time for these changes to truly become part of daily life in Turkey before a thorough judgment can be made.

Admittedly, the answer to whether Turkey satisfies the political criteria cannot be clear-cut or mathematically precise. It will be a question of assessing whether the reforms in Turkey have advanced to a sufficient degree to allow a positive conclusion.

This is precisely why the Commission must make a fair and objective assessment.

I see a lot of merit in the argument that opening negotiations will actually help cement the ongoing reform process and serve as a catalyst for more change. We have seen this happen in other countries.

I also see merit in the argument that opening negotiations will send a strong signal to the world that Islam and democracy are not incompatible.

These arguments should militate in favour of opening negotiations which, in any case, cannot realistically be expected to come to an end before a decade or so. Indeed, a decision to open negotiations does not commit us to a precise date for membership; it does not pre-judge the outcome of negotiations and it does not mean that Turkey's membership is a foregone conclusion. Turkey will still have to satisfy the full set of conditions of membership before it can join.

However, we should move cautiously and we should not start from a "yes" or "no" conclusion and then argue backwards to justify our preconceived conclusion. The make-or-break for Turkey's membership application is and should continue to be its compliance with the established conditions for membership as it has been for other countries.

Turkey should not be given special treatment. But it should be treated fairly and equally.

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