Last week Foreign Minister Ali Babacan was in town on one of his increasingly frequent visits, and next week the leader of the opposition Republican People's Party (CHP), Deniz Baykal, will be here to carry out two speaking engagements -- one at the European Parliament and the other at a leading Brussels think tank -- and to meet with key figures in EU institutions.
His visit has stirred up quite a bit of interest from those who follow Turkey-related issues. "Why is he coming?" seems to be the question on most people's lips. Is it because he wants to set the record straight vis-à-vis his party's position on the EU? Is it because he wants to try to win some extra votes in the upcoming municipal elections? Or does he simply fancy a city trip? Over the last few years, Baykal has carried out a rather introverted agenda, focusing principally on Turkish domestic politics. Foreign trips have not figured much on his calendar.
It has been quite some time since Baykal last visited these parts. The last trip I remember was in 2003, on the eve of the Iraq war. Many things have changed for both the EU and Turkey since then including, of course, Turkey beginning membership talks with the EU. Back then, the CHP was viewed as a modernizing, reformist party that backed Turkey's integration with the EU.
Since then, however, it seems the CHP has lost some of its enthusiasm for the EU project and, as some EU member states have increasingly questioned Turkey's right to membership, being a member of the EU club has started to lose its appeal and wide political backing in Turkey with some of the more sensitive reforms being viewed as very difficult to carry out, as long as Turkey has no watertight guarantee of membership.
In EU circles, the CHP seems to have become increasingly viewed as a party that has lost sight of its own agenda, spending too much time worrying about what the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) is up to rather than working on new and effective policies as viable alternatives to what the AK Party is offering. It is also seen as having somewhat moved away from its social democrat roots to take on a more nationalistic image, and as a result it seems to get blamed for many things, including blocking crucial EU reforms -- though I am not sure how it is supposed to have done this, given the fact the AK Party has always had a big enough majority to pass through such reforms without support from the opposition) -- trying to oust the AK Party from office (in one way or another), and holding hard-line positions on issues such as Cyprus and Armenia -- or so we are led to believe, anyway.
In fact, when Prime Minister Erdoğan was in Brussels, he bluntly blamed the CHP for its opposition to EU-related reforms which he claimed was one of the principal reasons behind the slowing of the reform process in Turkey. But representatives of the CHP claim otherwise. They say the CHP has been pressing the AK Party to restart the EU process. It should also not be forgotten that the CHP backed and helped push through a number of crucial EU-related reform packages when the AK Party was first elected in 2002. But since those early years, the road has forked, and it would seem that the CHP and the AK Party have gone off in two different directions. The AK Party blames the CHP for everything, and the CHP continues to imply that under the ruling AK Party, Turkey is heading down a dangerous road. Indeed, I doubt either of these prognoses is correct, but it seems an almost impossible task these days for the two parties to find common ground, which is a great loss for Turkey.
Recently, the CHP has also opened a Brussels' representation office, which is run by a very dynamic and intelligent lady who is actively trying to explain the CHP's policies, though some in Turkey see this office as a tool to spread propaganda against the ruling party. In fact, I think that many of the CHP's policies are quite "fuzzy" and unclear, including those on the EU. For example, Baykal's reaction to the launch of TRT Şeş, a Kurdish-language channel, was far from clear, which some people have interpreted as his opposition to it. Therefore, it will be good to hear from the "horse's mouth" precisely what the CHP president thinks about many things in Turkey's domestic and foreign policy, including on the EU project. I greatly look forward to his visit.
And it seems that Baykal is not the only one revisiting the EU question. I hear from the grapevine that the leader of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, is also planning a visit. We will be happy to see him, too.
