On the other hand, some other people want to use these difficulties to support their domestic and international policies. Especially when crises erupt within the EU about the union’s future, some people argue that the easiest way to solve these is to get rid of Turkey. Even if we don’t know what kind of predictions about the EU’s and the world’s future lead to such ideas, we are almost certain that keeping Turkey out of the EU emanates from a particular world vision.It’s also interesting to observe that every time Turkey affirms its intention to remain on the EU track and join the union when the time comes, some circles in Europe start to infuriate Turkish public opinion. Let’s look at France, for instance. Professor Baskın Oran’s daughter Sırma Oran had to withdraw her candidacy for the city council in Villeurbanne because the city’s mayor, Jean-Paul Bret, pressed her to make a public statement recognizing the Armenian “genocide.” She then filed a complaint against him on charges of discrimination, saying no other candidate has been asked to make such a gesture, but the court rejected her complaint. Leaving aside the judicial dimension, there is a serious problem with the mentality behind this event. Additionally, as France’s position of refusing Turkey’s accession to the EU is well known, this event will easily reinforce the already powerful opinion in Turkey that it is simply not possible to put the EU issue aside and develop relations between Turkey and France in other domains on a bilateral basis.
Germany provided us with the second example: The coalition member Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU) has recently declared that accession negotiations with Turkey should be stopped because according to them, Turkey is actually not suitable for membership in the EU. We had thought that the objective of the negotiation process was to make Turkey a “suitable” country for the EU, so this can’t be an excuse to push Turkey away from that process. Is there anyone who has figured out that this sort of declaration causes lasting damage to the relationship between Turkey and Germany?
One of our neighbors provided us with our third example: A Bulgarian cabinet minister who runs the country’s State Agency for Bulgarians Abroad (the very existence of such a post is quite interesting) has declared that Turkey should pay compensation for the property Bulgarian refugees left behind in 1913. Maybe he was not aware that scores of Turks had to abandon their homes and property in Bulgaria while migrating to Turkey or maybe he was just expressing his nationalistic feelings. Or perhaps he was trying to attract the EU’s core countries’ compassion toward Bulgaria, which hasn’t fulfilled any of the conditions EU accession requires, except not having a Muslim majority. Bulgaria’s only hope to correct its domestic situation, which is not compatible with its EU member status, is to get serious help from France and Germany. Maybe he thought that it would be reasonable to oppose Turkey since Germany and France oppose it. Thankfully, Turkey hasn’t got the slightest intention of seeing its relations with its neighbors deteriorate, because Ankara is aware of the real reasons behind these kinds of gestures. However, this awareness alone is not sufficient to move Turkey forward on the EU path.
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