How to interpret the latest salvo of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, and Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, denouncing, in practice, all the work done for the Turkish accession to the EU over the past 50 years, in a manner to declare it ripe for the wastebasket?What are these two leaders thinking?
As Today's Zaman reported, Merkel said: “We cannot take in everyone in Europe as a full member. … We have to talk about the borders of this Europe. It makes no sense if there are ever more members and we can't decide anything anymore. … It is right to say to people in the European election campaign ... our common position is: a privileged partnership for Turkey, but no full membership.”
French President Sarkozy gave his full backing. “When Angela Merkel says Europe must have borders, she is right -- because a Europe without borders would be a Europe without a will, without identity, without values,” he said on Sunday at an event organized by the German Christian Democrats in Germany, where he was a guest of honor as France's leading conservative.
Now, even if this joint statement would solely be aimed at appeasing the crowds to vote -- in the spirit of a referendum -- for Turkey's continued negotiations -- or not -- it will not remain there as elements of passing political fancy. They have made it clearer than ever before. It is all about Turkey, not about the enlargement per se.
Sarkozy knows, most probably, with the joy of knowing that his balancing factor, Bernard Kouchner, is adrift after the ill-managed Anders Fogh Rasmussen affair, in which both Rasmussen and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan were responsible for miscommunication, that he can widen his cynicism into new territory.
Having been in the United States for a week, never a day passed without a gloomy head shake and what is being observed as “the most discouraging way of acting against a transatlantic strategy for a different future in the Obama era.” The two European leaders are under the spotlight for failing entirely in being engaged in a question which has demanded utterly serious attention and commitment.
The overall perception is that they have failed to communicate honestly and correctly about the Turkish perspective to their respective publics: They have not been able to logically reassure people that it is a long path, with many years -- probably more than a decade -- to go before Turkey gains membership, and this project -- if successfully concluded -- will place the EU as the leading soft power in the world, in this decennium.
What do the two leaders want to achieve? Just some more votes in the European elections, a position that will entrench their positions as they might interpret it as a de facto referendum for or against declaring that Turkey should be expelled from its natural geographical affiliation, or to go further and declare that Europe's values -- the EU as a project of democratic values -- must be stopped selfishly at artificial borders?
In any case, it does not seem to make any sense.
It only causes sensation.
Both leaders certainly cannot have avoided the knowledge that the more they push anti-Turkey play to the brink, the weaker the European ideals of peaceful coexistence in diversity -- a dream once looking so glorious -- will be. But, interestingly, nobody at the moment knows whose side the time is on. Short-term investments in sociopolitical projects may expose those who act glued to them.
It is the least noble stand to pretend that the magic of transformation in Turkey, which has not yet led to conclusions, but a healthy turmoil, would not be attributed to the very existence of letting European values travel beyond some “imaginative borders” in Europe. This makes both leaders look as cynical and oriental as the leaders in less democratic parts of the world -- leaders no European of common sense would want to see as theirs.
It is a pity, though, that Sarkozy and Merkel should express themselves like “pre-EU” European politicians; they should have been wiser or chosen either to keep a noble silence or set up a benevolent communication strategy. The last thing the EU needs now is the hammering on a half-nailed coffin of the Turkish accession project.
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