IDENTITY PERSPECTIVE ON TURKEY’S ACCESSION

TO THE EUROPEAN UNION

By

IQRIMA ULFIANA

QGD 130006

Regionalization and Regionalism Theory and Practice

(Written Assignment)

Lecturer

Prof. Dr. Christoph Schuck

TU Dortmund University - Department of Philosophy and Political Science

Date of Submission: 1 April 2014

ASIA-EUROPE INSTITUTE

UNIVERSITY OF MALAYA

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Table of content

1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………3

2. Turkey: Road to Europe …………………………………………………4

3. Turkey – EU Identity ………………………………………………………….6

4. Turkey-EU Interaction from a Constructivist Approach …………………9

5. Conclusion …………………………………………………………………11

6. References …………………………………………………………………12

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1. Introduction

Most of the scholar agreed that turkey accession process for EU membership is the

longest and problematic one compare to the previous enlargement. Even one of them

characterized it as a turbulent marriage. Either they want to stay together or separate, but

for good and for bad, the couple has managed to stay together for more than 50 years.

EU – Turkey relation began about fifth decades ago with the Ankara Association

Agreement (1963) and has intensified since the positive decision on Turkey’s candidacy

status at the Helsinki European Council in 1999. However, shortly thereafter, exactly on

2005 during the negotiation talk of accession, the Turkey candidacy was suspended by

the EU Commission. This fact brought a puzzle for Turkey and raises a question of EU

interest on this accession. Based on the past research, the reason that leads EU decision is

different identity between EU and Turkey. Those was predominantly debate on identity

issue which eventually being obstacle that prevents Turkey accession to EU. Therefore,

on 2005 was marked by the beginning of a new era in terms of defining what constitutes

Europe and the European identity (Müftüler, 2007). This means that a candidate’s

accession negotiations to the EU are determined by perceptions of that candidate's fit into

a predetermined European identity. That is why the Turkish case is important because it

illustrates the ambivalent nature of Europeanness. Another way around, given such a

position, but still Turkey insist in pursuing EU membership. Still, past and current

Turkish governments have continued to work for admission to this exclusive “European

Club” (Avci 2006).

Hence, in this paper I would like to analyze if identity is the key issue that prevent

Turkey accession to be full EU membership. To elaborate this analysis, I will also apply

the constructivist IR theory on this case. The use of this theory based on the hypothesis

that identity, culture, norms and values which construct the social structure affect Turkish

and European identity interaction. I will also try to show that social constructivist IR

theory is able to provide a satisfactory illustration about Turkey-EU interaction.

Toward that objective, I will first make an overview about the Turkey road to Europe;

this is to show the objective and effort of Turkey toward EU membership. This aims to

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give understanding on Turkey-EU relation. Second, I will analyze how can we make a

sense of the relation EU identity and Turkey national identity in this accession process?

Lastly, I will elaborate the main premises by applying constructivism apaproach.

2. Turkey: Road to Europe

Turkey had lingered for fifty years in pursuit the full member of EU since 1980 which is

the longest period of time than any country. During this fifty years, Turkey being more

developed compare to what they were on 1960. This long period, Turkey has grown into

a modernized nation with enough stability to qualify as an economic and regional power

(Campbell & De Martino, 2013). In light of its Westward-looking relations remaining at

a standstill over the EU issue, Turkey has begun to use its geographic advantage to focus

its energies on improving relations with the Middle East. Furthermore, Turkey’s

influence and relationship with countries in the region vary, but if Turkey can find a

balance between the Middle East and Europe, it could become an important mediator

between the two. Accordingly, Turkey will pave a more beneficial path for itself by

remaining separate from the EU rather than tethering itself to EU economic and political

activities. Having these facts but Turkey still insist to put the EU membership for their

foreign policy objectives. Therefore, what is really desired Turkey for EU membership?

In 1923 the state elite established the Turkish Republic and formulated the recognition of

Turkey as a European state as one of its official foreign policy objectives. The political

reforms in the early years of the Republic, from 1923 to 1938, were adopted in order

transfer from the Ottoman past and to create a ‘modern’ European state.

M. Kemal Ataturk who brought the revolution to the road this modernity said:

“The West has always been prejudiced against the Turks… but we Turks have always

consistently moved towards the West… In order to be a civilized nation, there is no

alternative.” M. Kemal Ataturk

Ever since Turkey has taken an effort to westernize its political, economic and social.

Hence, the modern turkey is always identic with “westernization” which was understood

to be a process of emulating and eventually becoming a part of Western civilization. For

Atatürk, this meant becoming a part of Europe. Westernization included a material as

well as a non-material process, aiming to diminish the influence of the Islamic socio-

political cultural legacy of the former political establishment. Hence, EU membership has

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been effectively framed as a culmination of the process of Turkish modernization (Burak,

2010). In additional Müftüler (2007) said that Turkey’s initial objective in associating

itself with the EU was to get an acceptance for its European status.

As a sample of material process, this intention followed by several action, Turkey began

adhered to the Council of Europe in 1949, became a full member of the North Atlantic

Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1952. Turkey apply for associate membership of the

European Economic Community in 1959 and an agreement establishing an Association

between the EEC and Turkey, the so-called “Ankara Agreement”, was signed in 1963.

In term of non-material process, Turkey is an attempt to fully adopt the EU's acquis

communautaire and the European political standards. Two of the criteria require that the

candidate country is full-fledged democracy, respecting human right. In August 2005,

nine packages of major reform have been passed for this purpose. Most importantly, with

these reforms Turkey has reduced the military’s influence on government, enshrined

political dissent and religious pluralism, passed strict laws against torture, abolished the

dead penalty, and given substantial rights to the minorities in the country (Avci, 2006).

One also could argue that the European Union has played the most important role in

stimulating these political changes.

Until the Helsinki European Council (1999), the major political parties, groups and elites

support that Turkey should pursue EU membership. EU membership has come more

from business circles, liberals and, somewhat inconsistently, from the main stream right-

wing parties (the True Path party, DYP – Dogru Yol Partisi and ANAP)1. It also getting

more obvious especially when the current Justice and Development Party (AKP- Adalet

ve Kalkinma Partisi), a religious conservative government, appears “irrational” in this

respect, if one consider identity issue, and possibly religion, as a dividing line, like the

previous coalition government, composed of the democratic Left Party (DSP-Demokratik

Sol Parti), the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP – Milliyetci Hareket Parti), and the

Motherland Party (ANAP – Anavatan Partisi) – has even chosen to accelerate this

accession. Occasionally pro-Islamist parties 2 have voiced support for this step, when it

1 For example, see the statement of ANAP’s party leader Mesut Yilmaz in Hurriyet, 19 July 2000; Turkish Daily News, 11 September 2000; and Cumhuriyet, 10 October 2000. 2 See Avci 2006, Past and present Islamist parties include the Welfare Party (Refah Partisi, banned by the constitutional court in 1998), the Virtue Party (Fazilet Partisi, banned in 2000), the Felicity Party (Saadet partisi), and the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma Partisi).

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corresponded to their purposes. Among these parties, the AKP voiced an all-out support

for Turkey’s so-called EU project. Since 1999, two parties have stood out, one hampering

and the other accelerating the process: the MHP and the AKP, respectively. By and large,

ANAP, DYP and CHP have been supportive of Turkey’s EU candidacy. It is worth

mentioning that nationalist overtones have been heard occasionally from all parties3 .

Finally, NGOs have been very outspoken and generally very supportive of EU

membership4. Turkish public opinion has also been generally very supportive of

membership. When asked in a referendum in May 2003 whether they would support

Turkey’s membership, 72% per cents said “yes” while 16% said “no” and 10% gave no

answer5. Interestingly enough, the figures of support are higher than before the reform

process started. This may not necessarily indicate that the public consensus is an

informed one, but rather indicates the public desire for, and commitment to, the reform

process.

Therefore, literally, based on those figure and reform that have been done, Turkey is

considered already fulfil EU criteria of membership. However, as a matter of facts it’s not

sufficient to finally settle the candidacy requirement. Then it raises a question on identity

issue whether Turkey is European or not.

3. Turkey – EU Identity

As aforementioned above, in 2005, the rises debate on Turkey – EU identity begins when

the negotiation talks for Turkey candidacy for EU. They comes up with very abstract and

broad geopolitical or historical terms relating to general notions such as “becoming part

of Europe” or “becoming European”. One of the questions could be on EU sincere

ambition whether want to give Turkey full membership or not. On the Helsinki European

Council of 1999, they finally agreed on the candidate status of Turkey6. Turkey was

accepted in principle as a candidate State for membership, whose application was to be

assessed on the basis of the same criteria as other candidate States. These criteria are the

3 See, for example, the discussion surrounding the Customs agreement between Turkey and EU (Eder 1999). 4 See Avci 2006, The Turkish Industrialists and Businessmen Association TUSIAD (Turk Sanayicileri ve Isadamlari Dernegi) and the Economic Development Foundation IKV (iktisadi kalkinma Vakfi) are the leading organization in favour of the EU. The IKV has frequently acted as an umbrella organization for other NGOs when gathering support for the EU movement. It has gathered support of as many as 200 NGOs when appealing to the government to focus on and speed up EU affairs. The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation TESEV (Turkey Ekonomik ve Sosyal Etudler Vakfi), as well as the European Movement 2002, have also played a critical role with their activities geared towards educating the public and mobilizing EU suporters. 5 In May 1998, 62% said “yes”, 21% said “no” and 17% did not know. For a detailed overview, see carkoglu (2003). 6 Presidency Conclusions of the Helsinki European Council, 10/11 December 1999

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“political” criteria set at the Copenhagen European Council in June 19939 – namely that

that the candidate country achieve “stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the

rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities”. However by

contrast, The Commission recommended suspending or even breaking the accession

negotiations “in the case of serious a persistent breaches of the principles of liberty,

democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental rights and the rule of law on which

the Union is founded.

In that regard, Turkey is not very different from other South European states such as

Greece, Spain and Portugal, as all these countries tried to adopt basic principles and

norms of liberal democracy for the sake of inclusion in the European order. Further, still

in a concern for democracy and protection of human rights, compare to Romania,

according to independence evaluation from the years preceding the Copenhagen decision,

Romania was, however, classified as less democratic than both Turkey and all other CEE

states7. But then Romania has been accepted as EU members when enlargement decision

was taken in 19938. A vision of the EU as founded on a set of shared cultural values, such

as “liberty and solidarity, tolerance and human rights, democracy and the rule of law”

(Rehn 2005). From the latter perspective the EU could possibly embrace all countries,

regardless of religion or historical background. Therefore, why does EU treat Turkey

differently?

Prior Helsinki stage on 1999, the objections to the Turkish membership was primarily

based on economic and political considerations. Debates as regards to Turkey's

Europeanness were not yet on the table of the EU. According to Ziya Onis, "European

approach to Turkish-EU relations was that Turkey was economically backward and, at

the same time, had failed to satisfy the criteria in relation to democratization and human

rights necessary to qualify for full membership in the foreseeable future9. With the reform

process in economics since 2001 and in the political system since 2002, Turkey was able

to overcome most of the obstacles and fulfill the EU criteria in its economic and political

aspects.

7 Political rights and civil liberties in some EU applicant states, Freedom House, “country rating”. Available at www.freedomhouse.org. 8 Presidency Conclusions of the Copenhagen European Council, 21/22 June 1993 9 Onis, Z., "Turkey, Europe, and Paradoxes of Identity: Perspectives on the International Context of Democratization", Mediterranean Quarterly, Vol. 10 (March 1999), p. 107.

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However, since the 2004 Brussels European Council Meeting, in which the decision on

the formal opening of negotiations between Turkey and the EU was taken, "opponents to

enlargement have invoked a supposed historical and cultural identity, especially with

regard to Turkey10

. The perceived impact of Turkish accession to the EU has thus

become quite apparent in both the political elite level and the societal level in Europe. It

is at this stage in which cultural, ideational, and religious factors come into the scene.

Some have claimed that Europe’s identity would be lost if Turkey entered the Union

(Lundgren, 2006). They are thus echoing earlier statement by former German Chancellor

Helmut Kohl who once said that a Muslim country like Turkey does not belong in Europe

and by the former President of France, Valery Giscard d’Estaing who in an interview in

Le Monde in 2002 claimed that a future inclusion of Turkey in the Union “would be the

end of Europe” since Turkey “is not European country”. As a result, when the EU opened

the accession talks with Turkey on October 3 2005, upon the Turkish fulfillment of the

Copenhagen criteria, debates "concerning the various dimensions of European identity

and the boundaries of and the ambiguities surrounding the European project" have

sharply increased in number, rather than Turkey's ability in fulfilling the EU accession

criteria.

Hence, are some candidates more European? Should Turkey becoming European to be

accepted as full EU membership?

Based on Krame (2006), European defined Turkey as “the other”. It means Turkey has

always been regarded as an “outsider” to Europe with whom special relation had to be

established mainly for security (policy) reasons. It was also been argued that from the

beginning, EU-Turkey relation has been not perceived as an integral part of the European

integration process by most EU member states. Take into account that member state is

the main actors on EU decision-making. This led the conclusion that the success of

Turkey accession is based on their perspective, which meant it will be difficult to accept

turkey if they are still perceived as “the other”.

In order to enlighten this issue, it will be beneficial to look at Article 49 of the

Consolidated Version of Treaty on European Union: “Any European State which respects

the values referred to in Article 2 and is committed to promoting them may apply to

10 Mayer, F. C. and Palmowski, J., "European Identities and the EU-The Ties that Bind the Peoples of Europe", Journal of Common Market Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3, 2004, p. 593.

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become a member of the Union”. In Article 49, being European (being in European

geography) is identified as one of the identity criteria, and Europeans are differentiated

with some characteristics (Rumelili, 2004:39). It is because of that the countries which do

not have these characteristics are evaluated as ‘other’. For example, Morocco’s

membership application was rejected in 1987. This rejection had been in a very short

time. According to the European perception, Morocco is not European, and the claim that

this country has a European identity cannot be understood (Rumelili, 2004:40). The same

differentiation method is used for Ukraine and Russia by the EU.

Another viewpoint, EU provided candidacy status for Tukey in 1999, but the relations

between the parties were suspended. However the EU evaluated positively the

membership applications of Central and Eastern European countries. The reasons of the

EU are counted as shared history, shared culture and Europeanness (Akgül Açıkmeşe,

2004:26). French presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy's declaration that "Turkey's

place is not in the EU11

, therefore the main obstacle in Turkey's negotiations seems to be

precisely this perception.

4. Turkey-EU Interaction from a Constructivist Approach

Constructivist approach is applied in this analysis to elaborate and makes sense on what

and how is identity constructing the Turkey-EU interaction in case of Turkey accession.

Overall, from above point, we could assume that the challenge on Turkey candidacy is

identity issue. Although, Turkey did reform in it’s political, economic and social aspect

but still EU suspend the accession. The constructivist perspective foresees the possibility

that European and Turkish identities can be reconstructed in such a way as to make the

justification of Turkish membership possible and desirable from an identity viewpoint

(Rumelili, 2008). If one were to draw policy implications from this analysis, it would be

that Turkey should try to make its full membership in the EU justified and desirable from

an identity perspective because according to the constructivist perspective, it can and

must. Turkey can, because identities are socially constructed and negotiated (Rumelili,

2008). Therefore, what is the identity they negotiated?

Rumelili (2008) introduced three interdependent arguments from the constructivist

perspective with regard to the identity dimension in EU-Turkey relations. First, because

11 Owen Matthews, "How Europe Lost Turkey", Newsweek, December 11 2006.

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identities are socially constructed, negotiated, and contested, EU-Turkey relations

provide a site where the identities of ‘Europe’, the ‘Turk’, ‘Asia,’ and ‘Islam’ are

continuously negotiated. This negotiation is ultimately an open-ended process, in which

Turkey, just as much as the European Union and the European societies are actively

involved. Turkey’s repeated representations of the EU as a Christian club reproduced the

understanding that if the EU declined to grant membership to Turkey, it would be doing

so for cultural and religious reasons. According to Ziya Onis in the context of

contemporary Europe's self defınition, "Christianity is a key component of European

identity, even though it may not be its principal or overriding constituent. Similarly,

Müftüler (2005) argues that Christian-Muslim divide is a central line of demarcation

between Turkey and contemporary Europe.

Second, identities cannot be divorced from interests. Rather, identities are constitutive of

interests, meaning that the question of whether or not Turkish membership is in the EU’s

or in Turkey’s interest is defined by how European and Turkish identities are constituted

in relation to one another. The important thing is to look at how identities and interest are

constructed – how they are made or produced in and through specific international

interactions (Onuf, 1989; Wendt, 1994). Identity is formed through interaction with other

identities and with collective social institutions.

Third, identities, while they subject positions defined by broader discourses, are

reproduced through actors’ representations of self and other. To understand this point

Neumann (1999) observes three other elements common in the rhetoric of applicant

states. The first is the definition of self as European historically, geographically, and

culturally. The second is the representation of their immediate neighbors to the East as

less European in order to portray themselves as more European. While Poland and the

Czech Republic represented Slovakia, Romania, and Bulgaria as Eastern and hence less-

European, Romania and Bulgaria in turn represented Ukraine and Russia as less

European and underscored their differences. The third common element of applicant

rhetoric is the presentation of their societies and politics as a battleground between pro

and anti-Europeans. This portrayal adds certain urgency to their membership bid and

imposes a moral obligation on the EU to support the pro-Europeans. It is evident,

therefore, that certain representational practices of the formerly Eastern European

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countries renegotiated and redefined aspects of European identity as a whole. This

redefinition of European identity went hand in hand with the redefinition of European

interest in enlargement.

5. Conclusion

This article attempt to analyze the Turkey accessiom to the EU from constructivism

approach and argue that identity issue factors playing a very important role to the success

of Turkey’s accession.

The Rome Treaty of 1957 states that any European country can apply to become a

member. Furthermore, the 1962 Birkelbach Report of the European Parliament stresses

the importance of democratic credentials as a central value in the EC. Finally, the EU’s

accession criteria adopted in the 1993 Copenhagen summit explicitly state that the

stability of democratic institutions and respect for human rights are essential pre-

conditions for candidacy status as well as for opening accession negotiations. The

political conditionality of the EU has become the strongest external factor for political

change in countries aspiring for membership. In case of Turkey, so far in 2005, they had

been passed nine packages of major reform for this purpose as well as the Copenhagen

criteria. Literally, Turkey already fulfil requirement to be full EU member. However,

having said that, on 2005 the Commission suspends the Turkey candidacy. At this stage

many debates on the issue of cultural, ideational, and religious factors come into the

scene. Even some have claimed that Europe’s identity would be lost if Turkey entered the

Union. The different political and cultural identities assume different attitudes against the

European Union integration process of Turkey. Therefore, Turkey should try to make its

full membership in the EU justified and desirable from an identity perspective because

according to the constructivist perspective, it can and must. Turkey can, because

identities are socially constructed and negotiated (Rumelili, 2008).

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