At the same time, there are many in the EU who would beg to differ, saying rather that Turkey is the most favored candidate country ever, that because of Turkey’s unique geostrategic position, its relationship with the US and the crucial role it can potentially play for the future of EU energy security, etc., the EU has been more lenient with Turkey than other candidates. And if you are a Greek Cypriot you can add to that the fact that Turkey is the only country negotiating membership that occupies part of an EU member state.For the EU, Turkey is probably the negotiation from hell. Turkey is not Poland or Croatia or Hungary. It is a big, proud and at times arrogant nation which still carries a lot of baggage from the past. Unless Russia decides it would like to join the EU, there will probably never be such a difficult negotiation again. And while there are a number of member states that support Turkey’s membership aspirations, at the same time there can be little doubt that the EU somewhat begrudgingly accepted Turkey as a candidate country after finally running out of excuses. At that time, back in 1999, the feeling was that Turkey would probably never come near to meeting the Copenhagen criteria so it was not too much of a risk. Surprisingly, Turkey managed to pull the rabbit from the hat and do it, which gave the EU little choice but to concede that Turkey deserved a date to open membership negotiations. But since that day, the relationship has been increasingly plagued with difficulties. Right from the start, the Turks have been made aware that the EU is hardly overjoyed at the prospect of Turkey joining the club. This has been compounded by the resolution of the Cyprus problem becoming a precondition to membership (realistically speaking, it would have been rather impossible for it not to have, given Cyprus’ EU membership), the open hostility of some EU leaders and alternatives to full membership being put on the table. So while Turkey may have started this journey full of enthusiasm, this quickly dampened down and Ankara has understood that negotiating membership is not quite all it was cracked up to be. Negotiations are difficult and the process is long and tiresome. The EU pokes its nose into every aspect of Turkish life and no stone is left unturned. Indeed it is rather like “Big Brother,” only with more paperwork. Making progress involves making reforms and decisions that are not necessarily popular and, as was the case with a number of Eastern European countries when they negotiated, often results in governments going out of power. For them it was a price worth paying. For Turkey, it has not been easy getting used to being continually scrutinized and criticized, and Ankara does not like it -- particularly when the EU continues to give out mixed messages about the end result. While the government may continue to say that it wants to take the EU medicine and become “healthy” like all the other candidates that eventually went on to join, at the same time it seems that Turkey increasingly does not like the taste of that medicine too much, so only takes a few drops at a time. Even with all the regular lip-service coming out of Ankara, there is no concealing the AK Party’s (Justice and Development Party) lack of enthusiasm for the EU these days, with members of the AK Party telling me quite openly that the government is doing the minimum, just enough to keep up appearances. And with elections on the horizon for 2011, this will offer yet another excuse to hold back on carrying out reforms that might be viewed as sensitive. Rather, the AK Party will continue its policy to cherry-pick reforms, unfortunately only giving priority to those that are principally of benefit to the party, and of course keeping up the tired excuse of blaming the EU while the EU will continue to blame Turkey and say it needs to do more. All this is really disheartening because with the majority the AK Party has in Parliament, it has the power to push through legislation but it does not do so. Furthermore, a number of the efforts that Turkey made to impress the EU last year in terms of foreign policy are starting to run aground. Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia is in serious trouble, and Turkey will receive little sympathy from the international community for its demand that Armenia remove its troops from Azerbaijani territories before it proceeds, while the Kurdish opening, which the prime minister also sold as the sun and stars, has also failed to make much headway.
I have little doubt that each side will continue to blame the other for the ongoing difficulties, which have become a vicious circle that is increasingly difficult to break. I sometimes wonder whether Ankara really wants to break it. After all as long as there are difficulties, it offers the AK Party leadership the perfect excuse for not making progress, which in turn offers the EU the perfect excuse to keep the process at a slow pace -- perhaps in the end, this is a sort of bizarre win-win for them both.
