Turkey: Learning to Tango

Covering the Shire Counties of Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Suffolk, including Luton, Peterborough, Southend-on-Sea and Thurrock.

ANDuff

Email:

Andrew

Learning to Tango

In the run-up to the Helsinki European Council, which confirmed Turkey's status as a candidate member of the European Union, Andrew Duff MEP went to Istanbul and Ankara. Andrew Duff is Liberal Democrat Euro-MP for Eastern England and spokesman on constitutional affairs for the European Liberals.

Nothing has been so controversial for the European Union as whether or not to open up the prospect of Turkey's membership. Passions run high. Objections raised have concerned the state of Turkey's economic development, the predominance of Islam, the fact that it straddles Asia, its territorial quarrel with Greece, its occupation of Northern Cyprus, and, above all, its poor record on human rights and democracy. The EU and Turkey have been like bad tango partners, condemned to continue the dance while looking in different directions and treading on each other's feet.

I went to Turkey just before the European Council with fellow MEP Daniel Cohn-Bendit to see for ourselves how Turkey was approaching this critical EU decision. First, we found unanimous support for EU membership from all political forces in government and opposition, as well as from representatives of all ethnic groups and religions. Even the Islamic fundamentalist Virtue Party sees the more liberal climate that will be undoubtedly promoted by Turkey's candidature as a guarantee against its being outlawed by the current, autocratic but aggressively secular regime.

Second, we found a political culture in stark contrast with that of Western Europe's liberal democracy. The Turkish republic founded by Kemal Attaturk in the 1920s was and is obsessed with national security and identity. Citizenship exists to serve the sovereign and indivisible Turkish state. The military have a central and privileged role to play in government. Turkey's parliamentary democracy is run by factional and weak political parties, for whom clients seem more important than ideas.

Third, we found an economy where inflation, still running at 60% a year, has enfeebled the middle classes, where only the powerful can borrow money, and where social progress has faltered. The black economy runs at 50% of GNP. Against this background, even with the assistance of the EU and IMF, the great commercial skills of the Turks will be tested severely.

But the Helsinki summit was right to give Turkey the amber light for eventual Union membership. Turkey will only be able to modernise itself on the basis of the European traditions of pluralist democracy and social justice. As we British have discovered, European integration means open borders, more competition, and higher living and environmental standards. Membership of the EU requires the rule of law in domestic and international disputes. European citizenship will allow individual rights to be exercised collectively, and that will help the Kurds. And as a candidate member of the EU, Turkey's armed forces and police will have to brought under clean and effective civilian administration.

The twentieth century has seen great suffering in Turkey - as the recent terrible earthquakes reminded us. Over 30,000 people have died in the war against the Kurdish separatists. Turkey's suffering, and the suffering it has sometimes inflicted on others, is directly comparable to the experience of the former communist countries of the Soviet empire. If the rest of Eastern Europe is now to enjoy the prospect of security, prosperity, ecology and democracy, so should Turkey.

If a mainly Islamic country can contribute to European unification, we will all be enriched. And the obligations that will now fall upon Turkey if it is successfully to make the transition from candidate to member are such that its drive to democracy and human rights will be reinforced from within and encouraged and monitored from without. That means the end of capital punishment, constitutional reform and an amnesty for prisoners.

For Turks the hard work starts now. We should support them at the start of their modern European journey.