Mr. Bush seems to be playing a rather dangerous political game with Europe. In the above statements, he accuses them of religious bigotry AND makes the leap that the EU should give a flying fark about his (and America’s) opinion on the matter (as well as his own expertise on European politics).
So, a few questions:
SHOULD Europe care what Mr. Bush says, or is he poking his nose where it doesn’t belong (again)?
Is Mr. Bush right, or does he need a geography lesson and is vastly oversimplifying the matter?
Will his attempt at playing Mr. Nice Guy appeal to Muslims and Europeans, or will they become more upset?
Of course Europe shouldn’t care - just as the US doesn’t care what Europe has to say about domestic US policies.
As for Bush, he should feel free to comment on whatever internal EU policies he feels like, just as European leadrs don’t shy away from commenting on whatever internal US policies strike their fancy.
He’s sort of right. Turkey has never really been a part of Europe and has always had a seperate culture. But I would argue that at this time Turkey is about as European as some of the other Eastern European countries they are thinking about admitting.
Honestly, Turkey being a primarily Muslim nation is a huge sticking point. Several political commentators have made comments to that affect, and I believe even some European legislators.
Consciously or not, the religion of Turkey is a huge obstacle for them joining the EU. That and the not so good relations between them and Greece.
Neither. In a week this is going to be buried on the backpages.
As I understood it, France’s primary objection to Turkey is that they are poor. (That, and their bad relations with Greece and horrid human rights scoresheet. And not technically being in Europe).
Another sticking point might be that if Turkey joins the EU, then the Union becomes directly and permanently embroiled in the question of Kurdish independence, which is an even more volatile problem than the question of Basque or Catalan independence. As Bush ought to know, since he has already involved the U.S. in that problem, by conquering Iraq with the help of Iraqi Kurdish allies and raising their hopes of independence.
I find myself wondering: Why does Bush care whether Turkey joins the EU or not? How does that affect U.S. interests?
Furthermore, he seems to be saying Turkey should be a member just because it is a European country. Which it is, since it has territory on the European side of the Bosphorus – Istanbul and the lands around it. But not every European country is a Union member now. Norway and Switzerland are not members. Neither are Andorra, Monaco, Leichtenstein, San Marino, Vatican City, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia, Albania, Macedonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Bulgaria, or Russia. Nor Iceland, if Iceland counts as part of Europe. (As we think of Britain and Ireland as part of Europe.) What’s the big deal about Turkey?
Officially and at the higher ups, that’s the case (Chirac’s no racist). But you can also here the backbenchers and less important people grumbling about letting people who are predominantly Muslim in.
Because Turkey is an ally and Turkey desperately wants in. By taking their side and issuing little statements and light diplomatic pressure, we keep Turkey pretty safely at our side at little political cost. In other words, big gains with little effort.
That’s all. There’s not going to be any sort of huge diplomatic row in this - everyone understands the motivations of everyone else.
I’m content to think that this is a plot to have GWB poke his nose into European business in order to bait Chirac and Schroeder muck around in US elections. Then the Karl Rove Spin Machine will start up with soundbites of Kerry talking about all the foreign leaders that support him, in synch with pictures of the cheese eating surrender monkeys flashing on everyone’s TV screens. Bam. Bush wins by 10 points.
Why else would Bush offer his personal opinions on Turkey and Greece, what with Thanksgiving 7 months away?
Well, since you’re all clamoring for my opinion on all this…
I figure US pressure to admit Turkey was part of the prospective deal, along with a US promise the a federated Iraq would keep the Kurds from getting all nationalistic and feisty. An oil rich Kurdistan with plenty of festering motivation and the money to buy guns…oh, my.
Trouble is, Turkey didn’t quite live up to its end of the bargain. I figure the Turk admin was betting that admission of Turkey to the EU would make the Iraq medicine easier to swallow, they weren’t counting on the intensity of Turkish resistance. So they squandered a lot of political capital and probably figure the Americans still owe them for trying.
And, of course, the Greeks, with the Turks the co-champions for European grievance nurturing and grudge holding. Europe wants to have Turkey as a source of cheap domestic and industrial labor, but you don’t invite the help to sleep indoors.
The US has for a long time asked EU to let Turkey become a member of the “union”, it’s nothing new here. Bush just rehashes what Clinton and Bush S said in their time.
And of course Bush can say what he prefers and Europe should take it into consideration. But Europe decides on their own as the US does.
Turkey is often regarded as “the gateway to Asia”, half European, half Asian. They trade with both Europe and their non-European neighbours, they have (had) a lot of trade with Iraq.
But geography has nothing to do with the fact that Turkey is not an EU member yet, neither has religion (see next post).
Tough question. Personally, I don’t think he can sway anybody at this point, everybody has pretty much made up his/her mind about him. I don’t think people get upset, they probably just don’t lissen anymore.
I would have to ask for a cite here Neurotik, because by my experience this is flat out wrong. Mind you, I don’t doubt there have been a legislator or two, probably from a center-right Christian party somewhere, who did prefer to keep Turkey on the outside because of religion. But I have never heard that this as a primary reason for not admitting Turkey.
On the contrary, the reasons outlined have been:
A terrible human rights record, historically:
a) widespread torture in prisons
b) the death penalty
c) the outlawing of Kurdish culture (language, books, history), and the imprisonment of lawfully elected representatives to the Parliament who were Kurds
Turkey’s economy was in really really bad shape (and still is to some extent). This includes HUGE deficits way above what’s permitted within EU, and recent years with terrible inflation rates (I seem to recall an inflation of about 50%-70%, but too late to look it up tonight).
The fact that up until recently the military in reality had a strong hand in Turkey’s domestic and international affairs. Turkey was not all democratic.
Additionally, a fourth counterpoint has been the question about how big the EU should really be , and how fast it should grow. Don’t forget that up until recently (mid-90ies) EU consisted of only 12 countries, up until this year they were only 15 countries (out of more than 40 in Greater Europe).
However, much of the above have changed in the last couple of years, and I’d expect that Turkey will either be invited to membership negotiations, or get a date for such talks, during the next roundup in December this year.
Historically, Turkey (their various governments that is) has been one of USA’s closest allies in Europe, maybe even closer than Britain. Given that Turkey is such a huge country their voice would count a great deal when things are getting decided. In the past Turkey would probably side with or be favorable to american views on important issues, especially concerning trade relations and a future EU army.
But this seems to have changed now though, with the new government in Turkey.
I guess that’s the reason for US interest, historically. As I said before, Bush’s talk points about EU - Turkey relations are nothing new.
One point nobody on this thread has mentioned yet, and I’ve never heard it discussed elsewhere: Why does Turkey want to join the European Union? I know they’ve been hopeful applicants for years, and they keep getting turned down – why is it so important to them? Do they expect massive economic benefits from free trade with Union countries? Do they want a voice in the European Parliament? Do they want to be in a position to protect the rights of Turks living in European nations? Or to stand up for the Turkish Cypriots? Or do they just want to be accepted, dammit, as a modern, civilized nation?
They’ll get massive economic benefits from free trade with Union countries. The EU isn’t just a free-trade zone. It’s well beyond that. It was, and retains some features of a Common Market- fixed protective tariffs against non-members. In other words, the EU is set up not only to make intraunion trade easier, but to make extraunion trade more difficult. Not to mention that Turkey has consistently had a negative trade balance over the last forty-odd years, and EU membership would somewhat alleviate their foreign exchange crisis. Turkey is also $140 billion in debt, about three times their total annual exports. EU membership would provide a strong incentive its the mostly European creditors tp forgive its current debt.
The rights of Turks living in European nations are, if anything, rather better defended in those nations than in Turkey. The upper echelons of Turkish government have been notoriously antiestablishmentarian since it became a modern state. Mostly, this is because Kemal Ataturk, the “father of modern Turkey”, was, and that’s the way he sets things up. Thus, defending the rights of non-resident Turks (by which, presumably, you mean their religious freedoms) is not high on the to-do list of the Turkish polity.
This tension between Islam and the secular state means another benefit for Turkey to gaining EU membership- its democracy is somewhat unstable. The military has intervened a number of times in Turkey’s democratic process to keep Islamist/theocratic groups from taking power and dissolving the current secular system. Military rule was last imposed in 1980.
The EU is effectively a supranational government, and in joining, Turkey would cede some of its sovereignty. The various organs of the EU and the Turkish judicial system would be far more credible custodians of democracy than the military has been; while the leaders of Turkey’s military coups have always quickly transferred power back to elected civilian governments, there is always the risk that the next one won’t.
The religion thing that some have proposed as an obstacle shouldn’t be one. Turkey was founded on a secular ideal, and nowhere in the literature of the ECSC, ECM, EC, or EU has it ever said anything about religion (besides “freedom of”)
Bush can say what the heck he wants on internal European matters - of course Europe shouldn’t give a hoot.
I’ve often heard European leaders and politicians give opinions on internal US matters. Like capital punishment, healthcare, weapon laws, unbridled capitalism, culture (or lack thereof), etc.
Geographically Turkey is, barely, part of Europe. Personally I think more of Europe as an idea. In that Turkey is even more marginal European. Always the outsider, the other, the enemy, the invader. I think Russian would be much better EU candidate. Or Israel. Anyway Turkey has been promised membership, so there’s really no way back now. Of course we’re not talking about next Monday, or in two years. Probably we’re looking at 15-25 years earliest and then 10 years special limited membership after that.
Greece and Turkey are actually on fairly good terms lately. I even think Greece is one of the few European countries who thinks Turkey in the EU is a really good idea. After the idea that what is good for the region (around Greece) is good for Greece.
Why do you think it’s simply an attempt to play mister nice guy? It’s nothing new that the US thinks Turkey should be a part of Europe. I think other presidents besides Bush has said so. I believe the Americans think Turkey in the EU will help stabilise the area.
The anti-Islam sentiments against Turkey’s membership are definitely there in spades. From the lowest voters to the highest leaders. Witness also the “based on Christian value” drive in the EU constitution. Perfectly sculptured to exclude Turkey.
You mean like Helmut Kohl who said that the EU was “an association of nations with a Christian heritage” where nations with an Islamic heritage shouldn’t be allowed in?
Or Valerie Giscard d’Estaing who said, “Turkey belongs to a different civilization. As a Muslim society, Turkey will not be at home in Europe.”
You’re kidding yourself if you think unconscious racism isn’t something that Turkey is going to have to overcome in order to gain admittance. Of course, Chirac, Schroeder, et al. are not going to publicly voice this type of concern (if they did have it, although I don’t think many of the head honchos in Europe do) because I don’t think they would be welcomed by the public at large, even if the public at large shares those same feelings at some level.
Of course, the best way for Turkey to overcome this is to meet the European criteria so fully that there cannot be any question. Europe will not let xenophobia become the only obstacle to Turkish admission - they are too proud for that. But so long as there remains any small hole in Turkey’s resume, then that will be used to block their membership even if it would be ignored for other, more “European” states.
You’re right, I had forgotten that Greece has changed its stance on the grounds that the best way towards good relations in the area is to not alienate Turkey.
Just to be clear, Turkey has not been promised membership. They were basically given a todo list on human rights and the ecomony, and scheduled for further talkes in December 2004 (set by the Danish PM btw last year).
We’ll know more then. EU commended the new government of Turkey for their recent reforms in a statement a couple of weekes ago. I don’t think there are many hurdles left.
Question: What is a special limited EU membership? Are you talking about the EEA? If so, note that the EEA is not going to be expanded. I’ve never heard about this.
I’m well aware that significant segments of the Danish population has turned openly anti-islam, but I’ll have to ask you as I asked Neurotik, cite? This has never been a reason for not admitting Turkey in the past, AFAIK.
I bet Bush was trying to get Turkish approval more than poking France… Turkey isn’t too happy about how the Kurds are acting and who knows what might happen with “independent” Iraq. He took a free shot at pleasing his turkish “allies”.
As for Turkey… joining the EU would be very good economically and politically. I doubt they ever will. Cultural and Religious reasons being part of a much bigger “gap” between Europeans and Turks. The EU should give Turkey some economic advantages at most.
They are now officially EU-candidate and I think they have been promised negotiations on membership if they fulfil the points put down in Copenhagen, i.e. if they fulfil they demands they’re in. Probably real negotiations will begin in 2006. I think the wheels are in motion and there’s no way to stop it now. What I mean by limited membership is something like what Spain had and the Eastern European countries have now for a period of five (seven?) years; limited worker movement, etc.
:rolleyes: Yeah and Finns drink, Swedes are such fucking bores, and Noweigians have whaleblubber on their brains. You want me to answer that, you rephrase it without the insults.
My point exactly. I said: “Mind you, I don’t doubt there have been a legislator or two, probably from a center-right Christian party somewhere, who did prefer to keep Turkey on the outside because of religion.”
And which party did Kohl belong to? The CDU, as in Christian-Democratic Union. And what’s d’Estaing’s party affiliation? That’s right, the UDF, or Union for French Democracy, which according to The Free Dictionary is, quote: “[UDF] may be compared to the Christian-Democratic Union of Germany in terms of its Christian democrat policies”.
I asked for a cite to your claim that Turkey isn’t an EU member because of religion. You must either put together a decent analysis, or point to statements from the official EU that this is the reason they are not a member. I don’t think you will find any.
No, I don’t think I’m kidding myself. You think of Turkey as something the rest of Europe is unfamiliare with. But it’s not so. For example, tourism is the most important industry in Turkey. In my homecountry, 20% of the population travels abroad at least once a year. And the most popular destinations are in Turkey, Greece and Spain. I would bet you that there’s a lot more concern about EU membership for Russia, Israel or Balkan nations, than there is for Turkey.
You are correct only so far as in the past there has been a cultural component to overcome to become EU member. In those days EU was made up by 10-12 countries in central western Europe. Today it’s 25 countries. In a decade or two there probably will be 30-40 members, including not only most of East Europe, but even some of the former Soviet republics further to the east.