Turkey needs a better case...

Last week, Jack Straw, the UK's Foreign Secretary, gave a speech to the Institute of Public Policy Research on Turkey's European future. With the UK currently holding the European Union's presidency, the speech was doubly significant. Unfortunately, particularly for supporters of Turkey's EU membership, the speech only exposed how entangled in themselves the pro-Turkey arguments can get.

To go by his speech, when Mr Straw wants to say that Turkey's majority religion, Islam, should not worry Europe, he says the country is secular. When he wants to say that it would be dangerous to rebuff Turkey, he says it is important to show that Islam and Europe can co-exist. When Mr Straw wants to press the argument that Turkey is geographically part of Europe, he reminds his audience that Istanbul used to be Constantinople: yes, the secularist gives the city Christian roots.

In fact, the textual passage about Islam and Europe is even more curious than I have made out: "[Turkey's membership] will prove that a secular, democratic state which shows respect for Islam can live comfortably within Europe". Obviously he is not saying that no such state currently exists in Europe, when, as he notes, his own country has close to two million Muslim citizens. So what is he saying?

Beats me. I just know the moment you say that current EU states do respect Islam, this particular argument for Turkey's membership falls.

There is no point asking Mr Straw to make up his mind. It is because his mind is made up that he will use any ad hoc argument that comes to hand to justify the position already taken. It is the same when he argues about the economy and history.

The Ottoman Empire, Mr Straw says, was the ally of France and Britain against Russia in the Crimean war. Yes, and earlier it was the ally of Elizabethan England against Spain. Funny how Mr Straw did not mention that.

But the point is not that the Spaniards, Austrians and southern Germans, among others, can think up historic instances when Istanbul was the seat of their enemy. After all, one principal boast of the EU is to make partners out of historic enemies. Mr Straw himself refers to the significance of the (qualified) support of Greece and Cyprus for Turkey's membership. The point is that, once again, we have the sense of an argument being made to justify an existing position.

Take the economy. Turkey's economy, notes Mr Straw, "is growing faster than any of the current economies of the European Union". True, although even as Mr Straw's speech was being circulated by the Foreign Office, the Turkish press was discussing the slowing down of the growth of GNP. The second quarter of 2005 saw it go down to 3.4 per cent, having registered a magnificent 15.7 per cent in the equivalent quarter last year. But the point is this: this is the growth rate of an economy recovering from a catastrophe in 2002. It is not a long-term pattern.

Mr Straw also points out the strategic importance of Turkey with respect to energy: in the short-term future, 10 per cent of the world's tradable oil production will pass through Turkey. But the argument about membership - versus any other kind of close relationship - is about the compatibility of broad values not economic strategy. If economic strategy becomes the deciding criterion, the nature of the EU will have changed.

If Mr Straw or anyone else had to make these same arguments when an EU member state holds a referendum on the subject, these arguments would be blown out of the water. These arguments, with their shifting goalposts, would threaten Turkey's chances of membership because their weaknesses are so easily exposed in debate. The arguments are entangled in themselves. For the case for Turkey's membership to be made - as I think it should be - two related points need to be faced squarely by Turkey's supporters.

One is that any argument that strengthens Turkey's case for membership - from history, to dialogue between cultures, to strategy - is bound to strengthen the case for other Muslim countries on the Mediterranean coast. The historic and cultural case for their membership, should they (like Morocco) want it, is, if anything, stronger because the involvement was historically greater.

The moral is emphatically not that, therefore, Turkey should not be made a member because of the precedent thus set. Here is the second point that should be faced: Europe should acknowledge the southern Mediterranean as potential "members". A Europe based on "variable geometry" should not make this unrealistic.

This view of Europe's expression is not new. Almost 52 years ago, on October 13, 1953, one of the founding fathers of the EU, Alcide de Gasperi, gave a speech in which he said: "In Europe, there is not only Rome. How can one neglect or set aside the Near Eastern element [clearly meaning Turkey in particular], the Greek element, the Mediterranean African coastal element, the Germanic element, the Slav element?"

For De Gasperi, Europe was not just a geographic expression. Those "elements" of the former Roman empire and early Christendom also shared an important, formative part of its heritage. If Turkey's European supporters want to untangle their arguments, they probably need to return to this vision - which acknowledges both the Christian roots and the transcontinental expression of "Europe", rather than seeing them as incompatible.

ranierfsadni@europe.com