Background:
Turkey was founded in 1923 as the successor to the former Ottoman Empire, an underdeveloped feudal monarchy with strict sheria law (Islamic religious law), arguably it was a theocracy. Ever since the foundation of modern day Turkey, it has been a secular democracy with close relations with western countries. In 1949 Turkey entered the council of Europe; it then entered NATO and OCED in 1952 and 1961. In 1963, Turkey and present day EU, then known as EEC- European Economic Community, signed the Ankara Agreement which was supposed to take Turkey to Customs Union and finally to full EEC membership. Turkey did not submit it formal application for full EEC membership until 1987. Twenty two years later the issue of Turkish membership in the EU has still not been resolved.
Problem today:
The main problem today is that 22 years after the formal application to the EEC (EU), Turkey still has not received an answer, and they are becoming increasingly impatient. I would use this as a perfect example of how the long shadow of the future is disturbing bargaining process because the EU knows that once the cooperation is established, it’s there for good. The union, which is becoming all the time more uncertain about further enlargement in general, has problems accepting such a highly populated and relatively undeveloped country. Also, Turkey has problems with human rights, freedom of speech, equal rights for women and many other basic values of democracy. Many would think that the situation would improve once Turkey would enter the EU, but Bulgaria is a perfect reminder how things are not always so shiny in the union. In 2007 on a yearly report of Freedom House, a Hungarian nongovernmental organization that evaluates the level of democracy in countries across the world, Turkey scored 3.9 on a scale from 1 to 7 (one being the worst and 7 being the best score), which puts it right in the middle. By this organization Turkey is considered a partially-free country.
On the other hand, Turkey felt betrayed when Finland, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta even Bulgaria and Romania all entered the EU before them, and many of them were even former enemies of the west in the time of the Soviet Union. Turkey also felt used because obviously no one cared about the human rights and democratic values in 1950s when it joined NATO and was the “first line of defense” against an ‘Evil Empire”, to put it in word of Nixon.
On the other hand, Turkey felt betrayed when Finland, Sweden, Austria, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Cyprus, Latonia, Lithuania, Hungary, Malta even Bulgaria and Romania all entered the EU before them, and many of them were even former enemies of the west in the time of the Soviet Union. Turkey also felt used because obviously no one cared about the human rights and democratic values in 1950s when it joined NATO and was the “first line of defense” against an ‘Evil Empire”, to put it in word of Nixon.
Actors:
The actors directly affected by this problem are primarily states and the EU as an international organization. Why are states as well as the EU affected by this problem? For one, the states in the EU will suffer the consequences of accepting Turkey into the EU, no matter if they were positive or negative. For illustration, there is a possibility that the EU states, especially states in Western Europe could be flooded with immigrants of Turkish workers once it enters the union. The country especially in danger of this would be Germany, a state with an already huge ethnic Turkish minority. On the other hand this also could be beneficial to the Western European countries, for the simple reason that much of its population is getting older, 16% of Great Britain’s population is over 65, and therefore Turkish workers would be a perfect, young work force. In Turkey only 6% of population is over 65.
The EU as an institution would also be directly affected by this problem. The easiest way to show how would this happened would be on example of European Parliament. The European Parliament is the only body of EU that is democratically elected, a perfect example of a democratic deficit in this international organization, and the number of seats that is delegated to each country is proportionally decided. If we neglect Germany for a moment, there is no country in EU that is close to matching the population of Turkey; therefore naturally Turkish politicians would have huge influence in the work of the parliament.
The EU as an institution would also be directly affected by this problem. The easiest way to show how would this happened would be on example of European Parliament. The European Parliament is the only body of EU that is democratically elected, a perfect example of a democratic deficit in this international organization, and the number of seats that is delegated to each country is proportionally decided. If we neglect Germany for a moment, there is no country in EU that is close to matching the population of Turkey; therefore naturally Turkish politicians would have huge influence in the work of the parliament.
If status quo is maintained
As most of other problems, if they are not addressed, they can fire back. In my opinion this issue is primarily the EU’s to solve, because as far as Turkey is concerned, for very long time it was very clear about its attentions of joining the union. In case the status quo is not changed, there is a possibility that Turkey, simply decides to focus more in areas which would promise faster benefits. Just few weeks back Turkish President Abdullah Gul visited Moscow, which is the fourth visit of high Turkish officials to the second Eurasian country. The volume of trade between Turkey and Russia has reached four times the volume of trade between Turkey and the United States. Just how serious the situation has became shows this letter of Boyden Gray, American ambassador to the EU, to the Washington Times: "In order for the EU to be able to fulfill successfully the economic responsibilities it has taken on in Afghanistan, it has to be in close coordination with NATO and the US forces. Turkey, however, vetoes every sort of official contact between NATO and the EU. As a result of this, NATO is unable to speak officially with the EU. Similarly, the United States as well is unable to speak officially with the EU, at least in terms of Afghanistan." This also shows that it’s not just the EU with power in this situation.
International implications:
The outcome of this issue, weather Turkey joins the EU or not, will definitely influence on some other issues in the world today, these are some of more important ones: 1. Further Enlargement of the EU; 2. Policies of Middle Eastern States; 3. Policies of the USA
I. Further Enlargement of EU- No matter whether Turkey joins or not, it will send message to other countries with desire to join the EU. Most of all it will either set the boundary at the ends of the European continent or will send a message to countries outside of Europe that they have a possibility of joining the EU. Here most active are Morocco and Georgia, both of which already showed interest in joining the EU
II. Policies of Middle Eastern States- If Turkey joins the EU, policies of Middle Eastern states would definitely change, considering that the EU will now be on their doorstep they would have to adapt to the new situation of having such an important international player as their neighbor. In case Turkey does not join the EU, policies of Middle Eastern states would most likely stay unchanged, with a possibility of bigger Turkish influence as a regional power. We are already witnessing this with more important role that Turkey is playing in Middle East these days.
III. Policies of USA- The policies of the USA toward these states, in NATO will deeply depend on resolution of this concern. If Turkey enters the union, USA will have much easier job to deal with their allies in this organization, where Turks have important role (second biggest army in the alliance). If not USA will continue to have trouble in orchestrating their allies to “play the same music”, considering that some of key EU members are also members of NATO.
Past and Present Efforts
Actors Involved In Trying To Solve the Problem:
This is a very complicated problem and as such it has many actors who are involved in trying to resolve this issue. Actors that are most active are definitely Turkey, EU (institutions like EU Commission) as well as states inside EU. But the list does not end there, this is an international problem and as such it draws attention from many actors: states, IOs, NGOs and even insurgent group such as Kurdistan Worker’s Party inside Turkey.
IOs in general are more open to accession of Turkey into the EU because, naturally, liberalists are in favor of spreading of international organizations throughout the world which would give them more credibility. That said we must also notice that the situation from IOs to IOs varies based on many factors, let’s take NATO and Council of Europe as example. When we say NATO primarily it is thought of the US trying to help the situation through the framework of NATO because only two other member states of NATO that are also not a member of the EU are Canada, hate to sound stereotypical but throughout my research did not found any reaction on this issue, and Iceland, now in too much of economical crisis to worry about this issue. Also as mentioned before Turkey and some other key members of EU are also NATO allies. Council of Europe is in an awkward position as well; all the countries of EU are members of it as well as Turkey, Russia and some others. Therefore many of these IOs serve as a battle ground where these actors are trying to gain better bargaining position, as I will explain this later in the paper. This may also go in favor of realist theorist which say that IOs only exist because of situations like this where states are using IOs just to get what they want, while that might be the case it is also very important to notice that Turkey is doing all this just to enter one International Organization, and to me this does not sound like something irrelevant. NGOs have also very unique roles in this situation. They do not have any mechanism of punishment or reward of certain behavior of any side, but they are very influential in shaping public opinion and they can also “lobby” governments to change their certain policies according to their analysis. For example Human Rights Watch makes yearly report on protection of human rights in Turkey and the progress of reforms in this area required by EU. How important NGOs are in all this shows and this quotation of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan: "You have to consider both economy and democracy at the same time. You cannot choose one over another. You have to give both of them priority," he continues, "If we left out the NGOs, which are the primary elements in democracies, Turkey would not have been able to achieve the success it has in both domestic and foreign policy areas."
Kurdistan Worker’s Party is a unique case in a unique situation. They started as a Marxist insurgent group inside Turkey but now they are one of those who hope to get the most profit in a clash of giants. Basically they are hoping that if they keep Turkish government and their own population on separate sides of the table that eventually in order to Turkey join the EU it will have to give them significant autonomy, that’s how I see PKK. How do they fit in this problem with EU and Turkey? Well many of accusations toward Turkey go for their mistreatment of Kurdish minority on the east of the country.
IOs in general are more open to accession of Turkey into the EU because, naturally, liberalists are in favor of spreading of international organizations throughout the world which would give them more credibility. That said we must also notice that the situation from IOs to IOs varies based on many factors, let’s take NATO and Council of Europe as example. When we say NATO primarily it is thought of the US trying to help the situation through the framework of NATO because only two other member states of NATO that are also not a member of the EU are Canada, hate to sound stereotypical but throughout my research did not found any reaction on this issue, and Iceland, now in too much of economical crisis to worry about this issue. Also as mentioned before Turkey and some other key members of EU are also NATO allies. Council of Europe is in an awkward position as well; all the countries of EU are members of it as well as Turkey, Russia and some others. Therefore many of these IOs serve as a battle ground where these actors are trying to gain better bargaining position, as I will explain this later in the paper. This may also go in favor of realist theorist which say that IOs only exist because of situations like this where states are using IOs just to get what they want, while that might be the case it is also very important to notice that Turkey is doing all this just to enter one International Organization, and to me this does not sound like something irrelevant. NGOs have also very unique roles in this situation. They do not have any mechanism of punishment or reward of certain behavior of any side, but they are very influential in shaping public opinion and they can also “lobby” governments to change their certain policies according to their analysis. For example Human Rights Watch makes yearly report on protection of human rights in Turkey and the progress of reforms in this area required by EU. How important NGOs are in all this shows and this quotation of Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan: "You have to consider both economy and democracy at the same time. You cannot choose one over another. You have to give both of them priority," he continues, "If we left out the NGOs, which are the primary elements in democracies, Turkey would not have been able to achieve the success it has in both domestic and foreign policy areas."
Kurdistan Worker’s Party is a unique case in a unique situation. They started as a Marxist insurgent group inside Turkey but now they are one of those who hope to get the most profit in a clash of giants. Basically they are hoping that if they keep Turkish government and their own population on separate sides of the table that eventually in order to Turkey join the EU it will have to give them significant autonomy, that’s how I see PKK. How do they fit in this problem with EU and Turkey? Well many of accusations toward Turkey go for their mistreatment of Kurdish minority on the east of the country.
Actors Who Obstruct Cooperation
When I talk about actors who “obstruct” cooperation in this essay I will talk about actors who are opposing Turkey entering EU and in a way creating this issue.
Cyprus is one of the main obstacles for Turkey to enter the EU. The problem started in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus in an attempt to stop Greek annexation of the island. Even though the mission was successful Turkey never withdrew their forces of the island and created separate Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which until today have been only recognized by Turkey. Ever since entering EU, Cyprus has been blocking most of the negotiations of EU and Turkish government. In response, Turkey has blocked Cyprus in entering numerous other IOs like: BSEC, OECD, ESDP and others. What would make Cyprus more cooperative? Very simple… withdrawal of Turkish troops from the island, recognition of Cyprus, and normalization of relations. This issue brings up an obvious question, how Turkey plans to be in a union with a state that it does not even recognize. I think they are just using this situation as another bargaining option and that prior to entering the EU (if it ever happens) Turkey would recognize Cyprus, or would settle for an agreement much less favorable for Turkish Cypriots than it asks today.
France is also a big promotion figure for no further enlargement of EU. President Nicolas Sarcozy repeated in numerous occasions that EU is cultural as well as geographical entity and ruled out Turkish membership. With Angela Mercel, President Nicolas Sarcozy is strong believer of “privileged partnership.” France together with Austria also plagued to hold referendum on this issue, therefore what would make France more cooperable? Change in public opinion.
Kurdistan Workers Party is also another factor that is obstructing the cooperation; it is powerful enough to hold off negotiation in order to get the most benefits possible. Certain autonomy would probably solve the issue, not with the most of extremist part but at least with most of the Kurds population. By waiting Turkey is only losing, just like Britain did with Ireland and Home Rule in 1910s.
Cyprus is one of the main obstacles for Turkey to enter the EU. The problem started in 1974 when Turkey invaded Cyprus in an attempt to stop Greek annexation of the island. Even though the mission was successful Turkey never withdrew their forces of the island and created separate Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which until today have been only recognized by Turkey. Ever since entering EU, Cyprus has been blocking most of the negotiations of EU and Turkish government. In response, Turkey has blocked Cyprus in entering numerous other IOs like: BSEC, OECD, ESDP and others. What would make Cyprus more cooperative? Very simple… withdrawal of Turkish troops from the island, recognition of Cyprus, and normalization of relations. This issue brings up an obvious question, how Turkey plans to be in a union with a state that it does not even recognize. I think they are just using this situation as another bargaining option and that prior to entering the EU (if it ever happens) Turkey would recognize Cyprus, or would settle for an agreement much less favorable for Turkish Cypriots than it asks today.
France is also a big promotion figure for no further enlargement of EU. President Nicolas Sarcozy repeated in numerous occasions that EU is cultural as well as geographical entity and ruled out Turkish membership. With Angela Mercel, President Nicolas Sarcozy is strong believer of “privileged partnership.” France together with Austria also plagued to hold referendum on this issue, therefore what would make France more cooperable? Change in public opinion.
Kurdistan Workers Party is also another factor that is obstructing the cooperation; it is powerful enough to hold off negotiation in order to get the most benefits possible. Certain autonomy would probably solve the issue, not with the most of extremist part but at least with most of the Kurds population. By waiting Turkey is only losing, just like Britain did with Ireland and Home Rule in 1910s.
International Conferences
This has been long and exhausting process, primarily negotiated through the Intergovernmental Conferences between EU and Turkey, and with the last one organized by France on December 19, 2008. In these conferences, governments are negotiating by chapters, on the one just mentioned they were negotiation about chapter 4, "Free Circulation of Capital" and chapter 10 "Information Society and Media". In order to open a chapter, Turkey needs to syncronize their laws with the ones in EU, or at least close to it. Once the concensus has been made and agreed that both sided fulfill other sides conditions in a certain chapter, the chapter is closed. The problem is that on December 2006, due to the Turkish failure to apply to Cyprus the Additional Protocol to the Ankara Agreement, the Council decides that eight relevant chapters will not be opened and no chapter will be provisionally closed until Turkey has fulfilled its commitment. The eight chapters are: Free Movement of Goods, Right of Establishment and Freedom to Provide Services, Financial Services, Agriculture and Rural Development, Fisheries, Transport Policy, Customs Union and External Relations.
Current State of Problem
Since opening of the two chapters just mantioned before in December 2008, there has been little progress in negotiations. In fact, the situation has got even more complicated; Turkey, with Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan, has detiriorated it’s realtioniship with Israel at the Davos World Economic Forum by calling their action in gaza as “crime against humanity“. Also relations with Cyprus have not improved and the relationship with the US is in danger too, due to The Armenian Genocide Act whivh is about to be introduced in the US Congress. In the same time there are things that are influencing positivly on their relations with the west, but they are minor. For example Nabucco project, a pipleline that would bring natural gas from the Caspian sea through Turkey to Western Europe and in that way reduce dependance of Europe on Russian gas. Sounds like a very important project, and it is, but the problem that this project Turkey can not use to put pressure on EU on accession talks (and it tryed) , is that not even countries inside EU are all in an agreement to procide with this project. All in all the situation is complicated as it has been for years, and there is no signs for a quick solution.
Current State of Problem
Since opening of the two chapters just mantioned before in December 2008, there has been little progress in negotiations. In fact, the situation has got even more complicated; Turkey, with Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan, has detiriorated it’s realtioniship with Israel at the Davos World Economic Forum by calling their action in gaza as “crime against humanity“. Also relations with Cyprus have not improved and the relationship with the US is in danger too, due to The Armenian Genocide Act whivh is about to be introduced in the US Congress. In the same time there are things that are influencing positivly on their relations with the west, but they are minor. For example Nabucco project, a pipleline that would bring natural gas from the Caspian sea through Turkey to Western Europe and in that way reduce dependance of Europe on Russian gas. Sounds like a very important project, and it is, but the problem that this project Turkey can not use to put pressure on EU on accession talks (and it tryed) , is that not even countries inside EU are all in an agreement to procide with this project. All in all the situation is complicated as it has been for years, and there is no signs for a quick solution.
Policy Prescription
Turkey must play of passive role in this situation. What I mean by this is that they must admit they are still the weaker side here and that they need to let EU have much of their way in this issue. Turkey does not have a lot of good alternatives (but which it might choose if the current situation is not improved soon). On the east and south they have one of the most unstable and undemocratic regions in the world, with Israel constantly moving from a peace maker to war maker, on the west there is EU and on north is Russia, a state that cannot offer anything even close to what EU can offer.
As I see, the main problem in this issue is that EU doesn’t want to accept such a large Muslim country, with a fragile industry into the EU where it would have great influence within the EU institutions. On the other side Turkey predominantly want to join EU for the economic benefits. A costumes union agreement was signed in 1995. My question is: why not sign a common market agreement?
With an agreement like this Turkey and EU would be tied in a closer economic relationship, which would enable free movement of capital and labor. The economic theory that was presented by Bruce Scott in his “The Great Divide in the Global Village” shows what happens in the case of massive immigration from a less developed to a more developed country. (Scott) In this case, it would benefit both sides. For EU countries it would be beneficial because it needs a flow of a young work force, the truth is that over 17% of EU citizens are over 65 years of age. This is something that Turkey would be more than able to provide because only 6% of their population is over 65. This would also give a boost to the budgets of EU countries, especially for ones in Western Europe because they are famous for the social democracy, a capitalist society higher emphasis on welfare than in most other capitalist societies. And who is paying for all this welfare? Taxpayers!!! And naturally with increasing percentage of senior population this problem in EU this issue is starting to be taken more seriously. As another support for this policy estimates that EU will need twenty million immigrants in the next twenty years. With this one move EU would solve two issues. Many think that the EU can bring immigrants from all around the world like the United States, but that is not the case because members of EU do not have a common immigration policy. At the moment they are working on it, and the Blue card has been a proposed solution which would be a direct competitor of the US’s Green Card. But the problem is shown below.
We can see that this Card will not really help European nations very much in attract immigrants from third countries because it simply does not offer as many possibilities as the US’s Green Card. On the other hand, in Turkey, this would lead to a decrease in population as well as in unemployment, consequently stimulating the economy. Turkey is relatively under developed to the states of EU, but it is far from being poor with a GDP of $12, 900 per capita. Therefore it is highly unlikely that it would lose its entire skilled workforce. With the economy going in the right direction, it would be much easier for Turkish politicians to introduce new reforms that will satisfy Turkish citizens as well as Copenhagen criteria, which is needed to eventually join EU. Also at the same time when singing the common market agreement, Turkey would need to recognize Cyprus, normalize all the relations with the same country and support the reunification of Cyprus. In return Cyprus should respond in the same manner and stop obstructing negotiations between EU and Turkey from then on.
This is actually the only way that an actor which is obstructing cooperation can be moved aside, with offering them something in return, something they want more that they oppose Turkey entering EU. All the actors taking part in this “conflict” are important and as every other international actor want things their way. Actors like Tajikistan or India are not involved in resolving this issue, because it’s an issue that does not really affect them too much. One factor that would be really nice to remove and would greatly increase possibility for a solution is public opinion. A common citizen of the EU is just not informed enough about the pros and cons of this situation. Most of people are only simply informed enough to make rational decisions, and most of their information come from the party they affiliate with. For example, a common Italian voter, naturally, does not believe that Turkey accession to EU is of upmost importance for him, so he affiliates himself with a party that represent his view in domestic economy, abortion, drug control or some other issue. And then when the discussion is about Turkey’s accession they just simply have the same opinion as the leaders of their party. For this reason I find that Frances and Austrian position to call for referendum for this issue absolutely hypocritical , at the same time they did not call for a referendum to decide if they were to accept Eastern Europe in EU, even though the public opinion surveys were not showing that people were too eager for further enlargement. All this being said, it must be acknowledged that public opinion will always have some amount of influence and that it cannot be ignored.
When the reforms are passed and the conditions fulfilled, Euro should be introduced in Turkey with skipping the step of economical integration. This has already been done in Montenegro and Kosovo, where even though the countries are not part of EU they were allowed to use the Euro as their currency which would help them stabilize their economy. In the Montenegrin case it worked perfectly and even after the introduction of the Euro in 2002, the inflation started dropping and in 2005 reached 1.8% and made the economy much more stable. In Turkey it would be much harder, because the size of the Turkish and Montenegrin economy are incomparable, but hopefully, by that the time economic structure of the country would be much better organized. The positive affect of Euro was best shown in this last economical crisis when economies of countries not using the Euro literality plundered while the Euro was relatively stable compared to other world currencies. The best example for this would be Iceland, a country which now is openly considering option to join EU, in an attempt to save their economy.
At the beginning of accession of Turkey in the EU, both parties should come to an agreement on how to integrate Turkey into this new structure. What I mean by this is that there should be an agreement that will reduce a sudden influence of Turkey on the EU once it joins. For example, there should be an agreement that would limit the number of Turks going to the European Parliament to a smaller number so that the representation in the parliament is not so drastically changed.
This proposition is hard for one more reason. Including Turkey in the free labor movement is very risky because Turkey’s geographical position. Turkey shares a border of some 1950 km long with states like Iraq, Syria, Iran- states that are very controversial in the contemporary international scene. This would create an opportune situation for illegal immigration to EU as well as terrorist attacks. But this should be used as an opportunity for further integration, especially in the area of high politics. One of the things we learn through life that applies to individual people as well as worldwide organizations is that if not challenged or provide challenges for yourself, you will never improve, progress, or evolve. Every difficulty is an unexploited opportunity. Therefore, in order for this policy to work and at the same time to be used for further integration of EU in the second pillar that is in Security and Defense Policy, they would need to create a new Directorate General inside the European Commission that would bring together member states intelligence agencies, counter terrorist unites, coast guard, immigration agencies and others that could provide security to this international organization (something like Homeland Security in the United States). Although this Directorate General would be inside of European Commission (executive branch that is doing day to day business) the Commissioner should be responsible directly to the Council of European Union, to the actually elected governments of states because basically they will be working with their home institutions.
All this would take time, secret in developing and evolution is also not to overestimate yourself and take things step by step. That is why this process would take some time; my estimate would be from seven to ten years. Half of that time would be spent in the immigration policy of this prescription, because the effects that Bruce Scott described in his work take time, they do not happen overnight. In the other half Euro policy can be implemented and in the same time the new Directorate General should be established so it can work in full scale once Turkey enters the union. The last two years should be spent in preparation for Turkey to enter EU, like the limitation of Turkish representatives in the EU parliament. After implementation of these policies, we can expect that the negotiations would run much smoother that they would without them. At this current situation, negotiations are expected to last at least from ten to fifteen years, and that is without any major setbacks that already occurred.
As I see, the main problem in this issue is that EU doesn’t want to accept such a large Muslim country, with a fragile industry into the EU where it would have great influence within the EU institutions. On the other side Turkey predominantly want to join EU for the economic benefits. A costumes union agreement was signed in 1995. My question is: why not sign a common market agreement?
With an agreement like this Turkey and EU would be tied in a closer economic relationship, which would enable free movement of capital and labor. The economic theory that was presented by Bruce Scott in his “The Great Divide in the Global Village” shows what happens in the case of massive immigration from a less developed to a more developed country. (Scott) In this case, it would benefit both sides. For EU countries it would be beneficial because it needs a flow of a young work force, the truth is that over 17% of EU citizens are over 65 years of age. This is something that Turkey would be more than able to provide because only 6% of their population is over 65. This would also give a boost to the budgets of EU countries, especially for ones in Western Europe because they are famous for the social democracy, a capitalist society higher emphasis on welfare than in most other capitalist societies. And who is paying for all this welfare? Taxpayers!!! And naturally with increasing percentage of senior population this problem in EU this issue is starting to be taken more seriously. As another support for this policy estimates that EU will need twenty million immigrants in the next twenty years. With this one move EU would solve two issues. Many think that the EU can bring immigrants from all around the world like the United States, but that is not the case because members of EU do not have a common immigration policy. At the moment they are working on it, and the Blue card has been a proposed solution which would be a direct competitor of the US’s Green Card. But the problem is shown below.
We can see that this Card will not really help European nations very much in attract immigrants from third countries because it simply does not offer as many possibilities as the US’s Green Card. On the other hand, in Turkey, this would lead to a decrease in population as well as in unemployment, consequently stimulating the economy. Turkey is relatively under developed to the states of EU, but it is far from being poor with a GDP of $12, 900 per capita. Therefore it is highly unlikely that it would lose its entire skilled workforce. With the economy going in the right direction, it would be much easier for Turkish politicians to introduce new reforms that will satisfy Turkish citizens as well as Copenhagen criteria, which is needed to eventually join EU. Also at the same time when singing the common market agreement, Turkey would need to recognize Cyprus, normalize all the relations with the same country and support the reunification of Cyprus. In return Cyprus should respond in the same manner and stop obstructing negotiations between EU and Turkey from then on.
This is actually the only way that an actor which is obstructing cooperation can be moved aside, with offering them something in return, something they want more that they oppose Turkey entering EU. All the actors taking part in this “conflict” are important and as every other international actor want things their way. Actors like Tajikistan or India are not involved in resolving this issue, because it’s an issue that does not really affect them too much. One factor that would be really nice to remove and would greatly increase possibility for a solution is public opinion. A common citizen of the EU is just not informed enough about the pros and cons of this situation. Most of people are only simply informed enough to make rational decisions, and most of their information come from the party they affiliate with. For example, a common Italian voter, naturally, does not believe that Turkey accession to EU is of upmost importance for him, so he affiliates himself with a party that represent his view in domestic economy, abortion, drug control or some other issue. And then when the discussion is about Turkey’s accession they just simply have the same opinion as the leaders of their party. For this reason I find that Frances and Austrian position to call for referendum for this issue absolutely hypocritical , at the same time they did not call for a referendum to decide if they were to accept Eastern Europe in EU, even though the public opinion surveys were not showing that people were too eager for further enlargement. All this being said, it must be acknowledged that public opinion will always have some amount of influence and that it cannot be ignored.
When the reforms are passed and the conditions fulfilled, Euro should be introduced in Turkey with skipping the step of economical integration. This has already been done in Montenegro and Kosovo, where even though the countries are not part of EU they were allowed to use the Euro as their currency which would help them stabilize their economy. In the Montenegrin case it worked perfectly and even after the introduction of the Euro in 2002, the inflation started dropping and in 2005 reached 1.8% and made the economy much more stable. In Turkey it would be much harder, because the size of the Turkish and Montenegrin economy are incomparable, but hopefully, by that the time economic structure of the country would be much better organized. The positive affect of Euro was best shown in this last economical crisis when economies of countries not using the Euro literality plundered while the Euro was relatively stable compared to other world currencies. The best example for this would be Iceland, a country which now is openly considering option to join EU, in an attempt to save their economy.
At the beginning of accession of Turkey in the EU, both parties should come to an agreement on how to integrate Turkey into this new structure. What I mean by this is that there should be an agreement that will reduce a sudden influence of Turkey on the EU once it joins. For example, there should be an agreement that would limit the number of Turks going to the European Parliament to a smaller number so that the representation in the parliament is not so drastically changed.
This proposition is hard for one more reason. Including Turkey in the free labor movement is very risky because Turkey’s geographical position. Turkey shares a border of some 1950 km long with states like Iraq, Syria, Iran- states that are very controversial in the contemporary international scene. This would create an opportune situation for illegal immigration to EU as well as terrorist attacks. But this should be used as an opportunity for further integration, especially in the area of high politics. One of the things we learn through life that applies to individual people as well as worldwide organizations is that if not challenged or provide challenges for yourself, you will never improve, progress, or evolve. Every difficulty is an unexploited opportunity. Therefore, in order for this policy to work and at the same time to be used for further integration of EU in the second pillar that is in Security and Defense Policy, they would need to create a new Directorate General inside the European Commission that would bring together member states intelligence agencies, counter terrorist unites, coast guard, immigration agencies and others that could provide security to this international organization (something like Homeland Security in the United States). Although this Directorate General would be inside of European Commission (executive branch that is doing day to day business) the Commissioner should be responsible directly to the Council of European Union, to the actually elected governments of states because basically they will be working with their home institutions.
All this would take time, secret in developing and evolution is also not to overestimate yourself and take things step by step. That is why this process would take some time; my estimate would be from seven to ten years. Half of that time would be spent in the immigration policy of this prescription, because the effects that Bruce Scott described in his work take time, they do not happen overnight. In the other half Euro policy can be implemented and in the same time the new Directorate General should be established so it can work in full scale once Turkey enters the union. The last two years should be spent in preparation for Turkey to enter EU, like the limitation of Turkish representatives in the EU parliament. After implementation of these policies, we can expect that the negotiations would run much smoother that they would without them. At this current situation, negotiations are expected to last at least from ten to fifteen years, and that is without any major setbacks that already occurred.
May 2009
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