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Confident Turkey looks east, not west
Simon Tisdall
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
Turkey was not invited to Europe's big birthday bash yesterday despite
being an official candidate for EU membership. Ankara expressed
disappointment at a "missed opportunity". Media reaction to the
perceived snub was sharper.
"In the 1990s, the EU was a giant organisation governed by prominent
leaders," said leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "Today it has
become a fat midget that lacks perspective and is governed by
small-thinkers."
Disillusion with the EU has deepened since Brussels part-suspended
talks in December after a row over Cyprus. The hostility, as seen from
Ankara, of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has poisoned the pot further.
But anger and frustration is slowly giving way to a new, more
assertive idea: that perhaps Turkey does not really need Europe after
all ... - ... and the EU will come to regret its insultingly
complacent chauvinism as Turkey goes its own way. "Europeans
underestimate the importance and influence of Turkey," said Fuat
Keyman, professor of international relations at Istanbul's Koc
university. "If they are serious about the future of Europe as a
power in global affairs, they need to change their thinking."
Turkey was recalibrating its external ties and the EU was but one part
of the equation, Dr Keyman said. "Membership should not be seen just
as a gift to Turkey. There are benefits for Europe, too."
Semih Idiz, a foreign affairs columnist, goes further: "The EU is off
the radar. It has confirmed Turkey's worst expectations. At present,
it's an irrelevancy."
Turkey's new-found confidence about life beyond Europe is based in
part on a booming economy, whose sustained, IMF-supervised 7% annual
growth rate far outperforms large EU states. Export earnings are
rising too, including in the Arab lands of the old Ottoman empire.
Demographic trends are also boosting independent thinking, said Guven
Sak, an Ankara-based economist. "In Turkey the working age population
as a proportion of the total population is growing. In Europe, the
opposite is true."
Nor should Europe fear a new barbarian horde at the gates. Rates of
growth meant that by 2015, Turkey could become a net importer of
labour, he said.
Turkey's increasingly important regional leadership role is also
changing the way it views the EU. As a vital transit hub, it provides
much of Europe's oil and gas from the Caspian basin, Russia and,
prospectively, the Turkic republics of central Asia. This is leading
to closer cooperation with Moscow and reviving ideas of a Turkic
Commonwealth from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan.
The "reformed Islamist" government in Ankara is also cultivating the
Arab and Muslim world. It signalled a new strategic relationship with
Egypt this week. It sent peacekeeping troops to Lebanon last year. It
talks to Iran when many will not or cannot. Close links to Israel have
not prevented the building of ties with Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority. And despite tensions with the Kurds, Turkey is northern
Iraq's main economic partner. Istanbul is the likely venue of next
month's Iraq summit.
Rising ultra-nationalism and "neo-Ottoman" thinking, Islamist
extremism and political instability are the acknowledged dangers of
Turkey's rise. But its strength is its 70 million people's drive and
energy, a dynamic resource that flabby, middle-aged western Europe
lacks.
And then, there is fierce pride. "Ours is the only country to
reconcile Islam with a fully functioning, multiparty democracy in a
modern, secular republic," said opposition MP Sukru Elekdag. "Our
experience shatters the myth that Islam cannot accommodate democracy."
Officially, Turkey still wants to join the EU, says Faruk Logoglu of
the Centre for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara. But Europe must
banish its ignorance and acknowledge its own needs. "Europe is not yet
ready for Turkish membership," he said. "It's going to take a long
time to educate the European public."
Simon Tisdall
Monday March 26, 2007
The Guardian
Turkey was not invited to Europe's big birthday bash yesterday despite
being an official candidate for EU membership. Ankara expressed
disappointment at a "missed opportunity". Media reaction to the
perceived snub was sharper.
"In the 1990s, the EU was a giant organisation governed by prominent
leaders," said leading columnist Mehmet Ali Birand. "Today it has
become a fat midget that lacks perspective and is governed by
small-thinkers."
Disillusion with the EU has deepened since Brussels part-suspended
talks in December after a row over Cyprus. The hostility, as seen from
Ankara, of French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the
German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has poisoned the pot further.
But anger and frustration is slowly giving way to a new, more
assertive idea: that perhaps Turkey does not really need Europe after
all ... - ... and the EU will come to regret its insultingly
complacent chauvinism as Turkey goes its own way. "Europeans
underestimate the importance and influence of Turkey," said Fuat
Keyman, professor of international relations at Istanbul's Koc
university. "If they are serious about the future of Europe as a
power in global affairs, they need to change their thinking."
Turkey was recalibrating its external ties and the EU was but one part
of the equation, Dr Keyman said. "Membership should not be seen just
as a gift to Turkey. There are benefits for Europe, too."
Semih Idiz, a foreign affairs columnist, goes further: "The EU is off
the radar. It has confirmed Turkey's worst expectations. At present,
it's an irrelevancy."
Turkey's new-found confidence about life beyond Europe is based in
part on a booming economy, whose sustained, IMF-supervised 7% annual
growth rate far outperforms large EU states. Export earnings are
rising too, including in the Arab lands of the old Ottoman empire.
Demographic trends are also boosting independent thinking, said Guven
Sak, an Ankara-based economist. "In Turkey the working age population
as a proportion of the total population is growing. In Europe, the
opposite is true."
Nor should Europe fear a new barbarian horde at the gates. Rates of
growth meant that by 2015, Turkey could become a net importer of
labour, he said.
Turkey's increasingly important regional leadership role is also
changing the way it views the EU. As a vital transit hub, it provides
much of Europe's oil and gas from the Caspian basin, Russia and,
prospectively, the Turkic republics of central Asia. This is leading
to closer cooperation with Moscow and reviving ideas of a Turkic
Commonwealth from Azerbaijan to Kazakhstan.
The "reformed Islamist" government in Ankara is also cultivating the
Arab and Muslim world. It signalled a new strategic relationship with
Egypt this week. It sent peacekeeping troops to Lebanon last year. It
talks to Iran when many will not or cannot. Close links to Israel have
not prevented the building of ties with Hamas and the Palestinian
Authority. And despite tensions with the Kurds, Turkey is northern
Iraq's main economic partner. Istanbul is the likely venue of next
month's Iraq summit.
Rising ultra-nationalism and "neo-Ottoman" thinking, Islamist
extremism and political instability are the acknowledged dangers of
Turkey's rise. But its strength is its 70 million people's drive and
energy, a dynamic resource that flabby, middle-aged western Europe
lacks.
And then, there is fierce pride. "Ours is the only country to
reconcile Islam with a fully functioning, multiparty democracy in a
modern, secular republic," said opposition MP Sukru Elekdag. "Our
experience shatters the myth that Islam cannot accommodate democracy."
Officially, Turkey still wants to join the EU, says Faruk Logoglu of
the Centre for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara. But Europe must
banish its ignorance and acknowledge its own needs. "Europe is not yet
ready for Turkish membership," he said. "It's going to take a long
time to educate the European public."