Analysis: Turkey’s democratic reforms get poor grades

2 Nov 2006
World Peace Herald
By Stefan Nicola
UPI Germany Correspondent

BERLIN -- A new European Union report is set to give Turkey low grades on its democratic reforms and further delay the country's EU accession, a process already under scrutiny by most of Europe.

An unnamed EU official told the Financial Times Germany newspaper he was surprised that Turkey was so significantly behind in its democratization process.

"We would have hoped that Turkey would have delivered a lot more during the past 18 months, certainly since the beginning of negotiations in October last year," the official said. "If Turkey had been moving more, if there was greater freedom of expression, if there wasn't any torture, things would be a lot more promising."

The official report, which the newspaper said it has seen, will be presented next week. It said "prosecutions and convictions for the expression of non-violent opinion ... are a cause for serious concern," although on the weekend, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he has no plans to change the penal code for such cases, the newspaper reported.

Such bad grades for Turkey are by no means a surprise, experts say.

"Since the beginning of the accession negotiations, Turkey and the EU have constantly distanced themselves from each other," Heinz Kramer, Turkey expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs, a Berlin-based think tank, told United Press International. "That's also because the accession process within the EU has not much or only half-hearted backing."

Public support for Turkey's EU membership is at an all time low, with less than one in three Europeans supporting it.

"Large parts of the population and -- mostly conservative -- political elites feel that Turkey does not belong to Europe," Kramer said.

A country with unsolved regional conflicts and roughly 70 million citizens, nearly all of them Muslims, Turkey is seen by many European governments as a burden, rather than an asset to the EU.

France, Austria, the Netherlands, Denmark and Slovakia are among the most outspoken opponents, with Paris speaking loudest. In what observers say was a bid to bank on anti-Turkey sentiments, France earlier this month adopted a bill that makes it a crime to deny that an Armenian genocide occurred in Turkey during World War I, a move that was criticized in most of Europe. France is home to roughly 500,000 people whose families came from Armenia, many of them descendants of families that experienced the 1915-1923 violence that killed some 1.5 million people. Turkey denies that genocide took place.


The Cyprus problem

Another unresolved issue involves the Republic of Cyprus.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently said that if Turkey wants to be accepted into the EU, Ankara would have to open its ports to Cypriots and recognize the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member.

Cyprus, a popular Mediterranean tourist destination, has been divided into a Republic of Cyprus -- the Greek Cypriot south -- and a Turkish-occupied north since a 1974 Turkish invasion.

Merkel has been critical of Turkey's EU accession and favors the model of a "privileged partnership" instead, although her coalition government officially endorses the accession process.

Finland, which currently holds the rotating the EU presidency, has been beefing up efforts to prevent a possible escalation of the Cyprus crisis, wanted by "neither the EU nor Turkey," Kramer said.

Within the EU, the supporters of a Turkey membership, including Spain and Britain, argue Turkey could serve as a bridge to the Islamic world, and fuel democratization efforts in the region. Most EU governments, however, feel the enlargement process, with Croatia becoming a member soon, has reached its limits, and pointing to Turkey's reform shortcomings is an easy way out of a quick accession.

But the EU, with its half-hearted support of the Turkish accession process, is also to blame for the lack of reforms in Turkey, Kramer said.

"In Ankara, politicians think: 'Why should we make all these efforts if in the end, nothing comes out of it,'" he told UPI. "From how it looks now, it may only be a question of time until the whole process becomes deadlocked."


Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.