Who might have predicted it could be so exhausting when the Ankara Agreement was initialed back in 1963? “Frodo Erdoğan and his young hobbit sidekick, Ali Babacan, could hardly know what they were getting themselves into when they set out from the Shire,” was the line that popped into my head. I had already gotten to the point when Ahmet “the elf” Davutoğlu joined the fellowship, but when it came to casting Olli Rehn as Gandalf the wizard I decided to let the whole thing drop. The one thing I did manage to salvage from the experience was a recollection of the sense of urgency that lies behind all epic adventures. The one moment I remember from the “The Lord of the Rings” was when the hobbits get a vision of what will happen if they do not succeed. The green and pleasant homeland from which they came is turned into a scene of devastation. The mission might not succeed, but staying at home was never an option. The book itself was written during World War II, at a time when cherished values did risk being destroyed forever. The Treaty of Rome was later born out of the conviction that Europe should never be at war with itself again.
The European Union is now something most of its citizens take for granted. And even euroskeptics would find it hard to conceive of a Europe divided by artificial barriers, custom walls and rigid passport controls. However, Europe is finding it increasingly difficult to imagine its borders expanding to include Turkey. The process is very far from inevitable. The fault is not entirely Ankara’s, although the application appears to lack sincerity at key points. Of course, it is not unnatural that if the government sees the road blocked up ahead or likely to expend another generation at least before it reaches its destination, it should try to conjure up alternatives. Indeed, the conventional wisdom is that the more capable Turkey is at showing it can manage on its own or the less “needy” it appears, the more attractive it becomes to Brussels.
I was struck by the sense of jaundice that has set into Turkey’s EU application while attending the launch of a new station of the state-owned Turkish Television and Radio Corporation, to be known as TRT Türk. This is intended as the Turkish equivalent of BBC World News although, unlike that station, it does not appear to be reliant on commercial funding. The sheer number of ministers at the opening, including the prime minister himself, suggests that the station is intended as a projection of Turkish soft power, a new instrument of Turkish-language diplomacy. At one point in the proceedings Mr. Erdoğan was called upon to ask questions of TRT’s correspondents posted in far-flung places -- a curious role reversal of the more normal sort of journalism where correspondents ask question of politicians. Mr. Erdoğan did not so much ask as instruct the Jerusalem correspondent on his government’s impatience with the blockade of Gaza. When it came time to talk to Brussels, you could almost touch the irony. “How are negotiations with the EU going?” he asked, suppressing a little laugh.
The danger is that the entire accession process will turn from being a roadmap for Turkey’s integration into Europe into a demonic satnav -- sending relations the wrong way up one way streets and into cul-de-sacs. The way things are going, Ankara could find itself more estranged from the rest of Europe than if it had never sat down to negotiate at all.
