Turkey solidifies ties with European Union, eyes cooperation on terrorism

Ministers and senior bureaucrats from the EU and Turkey met on Wednesday in Brussels during an intergovernmental conference marking the opening of the EU chapter on food safety and veterinary standards. The critical move comes at a time when Turkey’s ties with the West are being questioned and follows accusations leveled by the US against the EU for pushing Turkey away. The opening of one more chapter in the negotiations process signals two things: that the EU wants to firmly anchor Turkey to the bloc and that the Turkish side is still willing to continue on the EU path.

Spain pushed hard in last minute diplomacy to secure the opening of at least one chapter for Turkey and cut an eight-week-long consultation with member states to 10 days. Diplomats familiar with the discussions told Today’s Zaman that Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos worked hard to convince Greek Cypriots to give a green light to the opening of another two chapters, but failed to obtain their consent.

“Turkey has completed all technical criteria and Parliament has passed all necessary laws. It was about time we heard positive news from the EU side,” Egemen Bağış, a state minister and Turkey’s chief EU negotiator, told Today’s Zaman en route to Brussels on Wednesday. It took three years for the EU to open the chapter on food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy after the screening process was completed in 2007.

The screening report, which had surveyed the respective regulations and existing structure in food and plant safety, noted then that Turkey “has reached a low level of alignment in the preparation for accession.”

Three years later, in sharp contrast to the screening report, the opening of the chapter confirms all 27-member countries agreed Turkey had passed necessary criteria and obtained critical benchmarks securing the opening of the chapter on food safety, Bağış said. Mehdi Eker, whose Ministry of Agriculture completed all the work required for the chapter opening, sounded upbeat about the process. “With this step, we give the message that the protection of food and plant health for EU countries starts from the most eastern border of Turkey,” he said.

State Minister and chief EU negotiator Egemen Bağış (R) and Agriculture Minister Mehdi Eker smile at the cameras on Wednesday in Ankara before leaving for Brussels to attend the opening of the EU chapter on food safety and veterinary standards.

Eker, who accompanied Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu along with Bağış during the ceremony in Brussels, explained that Turkey had taken speedy steps to harmonize Turkish agricultural legislation with that of the EU within the framework of the Third National Program, which maps EU-required reforms. The Turkish Parliament passed the Food Safety Law earlier this month after long debates in Parliament.

The Ministry of Agriculture has spent 170 million euros to bring the structure in line with EU standards. The EU has provided 140 million euros of this amount to finance the projects aimed at upgrading the ministry’s capacity to handle food safety protection. It set up 40 labs across the country to address health concerns for food safety and established the National Food Reference Lab to oversee and coordinate all these labs’ work.

It also set up six animal checkpoint centers across the country and completed preparations of vaccination programs for husbandry. For tracing purposes, Turkey’s 11 million cattle are tagged with ear tags. An animal without an ear tag cannot be transferred from one place to another. The government only allows one route for the transfer of cattle between the Asian and European side: over the Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge in İstanbul. “We rigorously check records and vaccination papers before allowing any transfer,” Eker said.

Running out of chapters

Bağış lamented the difficulties related to the opening of new chapters between Turkey and the EU since Turkey started accession negotiations with the European bloc in 2005. In that regard, he said 33 out of 35 chapters are technical in nature.

The EU suspended accession talks on eight out of 35 chapters in 2006 due to Turkey’s refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus. France, which opposes Turkish accession to the EU, is unilaterally blocking talks on five chapters which it says are directly related to accession. Greek Cyprus, for its part, announced in December that it would veto the opening of talks on five other chapters due to the continued failure of Turkey to open its ports and airports to its ships and planes. So far, only one chapter, the largely uncontroversial category of science and research policy, has been closed.

“So we are left with three chapters that can be opened as studies have already been carried out on the opening benchmarks,” he said. Those chapters are public procurement, competition policy and social policy and employment.

He strongly criticized some EU member states for proposing the resolution of the Cyprus problem as a requirement for opening new chapters. “Why did this issue not become an obstacle for Greece or the UK, as both countries have troops on the island as guarantor states? How did the Greek Cypriots become a member of the EU after they rejected the 2004 UN-sponsored plan which was accepted by Turks in the north?” Bağış asked, stressing that Turkey is focused on the process and not the end result.

Focus on new chapter

Bağış explained that Turkey has pinned its hopes on the Belgian presidency for the opening of a new chapter on competition policy. Turkey has already been lobbying Belgium, which took over the six-month rotating presidency of the EU from Spain today. Bağış met with Belgian officials and discussed the roadmap on how to proceed on fast-tracking the chapter opening and on how to overcome resistance within the EU. “We received a positive response from Belgian officials,” he said.

Turkey is already working on a new law on establishing a new agency under the Treasury to coordinate all state aid, which will meet three of five requirements for the opening of the chapter on competition.

Terrorism on agenda of meeting

Bağış also said terrorism was added in the last minute to the agenda of a meeting between Turkish and EU officials who will gather in Turkey on July 13 for a meeting which will focus on the strategic aspects of Turkey’s EU membership bid. EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle are among those who will participate in the meeting, where Turkey will be represented by several Cabinet members, including Davutoğlu and Bağış. “We will explore what the EU can do for Turkey in resolving the problem of terrorism,” Bağış told Today’s Zaman.

EU Counterterrorism Coordinator Gijs de Vries will also come to Turkey to meet Muammer Güler, who was selected to serve as Turkey’s first undersecretary of public security and order. Turkey is expected to raise the issue of the activities of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Europe and ask for the extradition of some PKK members as well as the prosecution of PKK members for money laundering and drug trafficking.