Turkey — Ukraine’s bigger, younger and more economically vibrant neighbor to the south – has been trying to join the EU since 1959. Turkey signed an Association Agreement in 1963 and got an explicit EU commitment for eventual membership. That was 50 years ago and Turkey is still, obviously, not part of the 28-nation club.
If Ukraine reaches a similar agreement that includes a free-trade pact at the biannual Eastern European Partnership summit in Lithuania, the deal will not include any EU commitment to eventual Ukraine membership.
If the EU moves as slowing in accepting Ukraine for membership as it is with Turkey, we’ll still be having these EU integration arguments in 2063. I’ll be very dead by then.
Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s deputy prime minister in charge of EU integration, doesn’t expect his nation will ever be accepted in the EU for one simple reason: “Prejudice,” he said at last month’s Yalta European Strategy conference.
He didn’t explicitly describe the prejudice, but I and many others concluded that he meant that predominately Muslim Turkey would never be welcomed in the EU. So if being mostly white and Christian is an edge for membership, Ukraine may, indeed, get in to the EU ahead of Turkey.
So why does Turkey even bother, and should Ukraine?
Bagis’ answer was an emphatic yes.
Calling the EU “the grandest peace project in history of mankind,” Bagis called on European leaders to integrate more widely and expand to thrive.
“It’s time that Europe goes back to what it does best: grow,” Bagis said. “It’s time for them to put their prejudices away and accept young and dynamic nations like Turkey and Ukraine.” He tweaked former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who appeared on the same panel, by noting that Turkey’s median age is 29 while Germany’s is 45. He also made a pitch for the EU to welcome Balkan countries not in the EU, such as Macedonia and Serbia.
In some ways, Bagis argued, Turkey has the best of both worlds: He says it follows the EU’s prescription for democracy, trade and economic liberalization and fiscal discipline. At the same time, Turkey can do what it wants and is not constrained by the EU’s rule of unanimity – in which nothing gets done unless all 28 members agree.
From 1923, the year the republic was founded, until 2002, when the Justice and Development Party took power, Bagis said that Turkey spent the largest share of its government budget on defense spending. Today, in line with EU priorities, defense spending has fallen to No. 8 and Turkey invests more in democracy-building projects, education, transportation and other areas “that affect the daily lives of our own people.” Since Bagis is part of the ruling party, he overlooks the faults of Prime Minister Recep Tayep Erdogan, who is criticized for increasingly authoritarian ways.
But the economic progress seems undeniable. In 1963, Bagis said the per-capita nominal income for Turks was $400; today it is $11,000.
Moreover, Turkey’s economy grew 4.4 percent in the last quarter and the gross domestic product has increased an average of 6 percent in the last decade.
Turkey is even doing better in following the EU’s prescription than many EU countries, he noted. Without mentioning Greece or other nations by name, he talked of countries that lied about the size of their fiscal deficits – exacerbating the economic crisis that Europe remains mired in and increasing the size of the bailouts for such Euro-zone EU nations as Greece. Evidently referring also to Greece, he complained about one nation that was blocking an energy charter that would speed the supplies of energy through Turkey to Europe.
“One member state in the Mediterranean is hijacking the energy interests of 500 million Europeans because they feel like it,” Bagis said. “The problem is that the 27 others are incapable of convincing that state while financing that state fully.
“These guys love to shoot themselves in the foot and we’re watching,” Bagis said of the EU. “We are confident that they will eventually wake up and smell the coffee and realize they are not hurting me by putting me on the back burner. They’re hurting themselves. Since 1959 we have been trying to become a member of the EU. That probably should go into the Guinness Book of World Records. We’re waiting for them to see the truth. We’re not giving up. We are reforming our own country and we are waiting for them to see the truth.”
His message to Ukraine seemed to be: You, too, can do the same. The process of EU integration can be as helpful and as successful – or even more so, in some ways — as actually joining the club.
Some public opinion polls in Turkey are quite instructive as well. He said that at the time of the association agreement in 1963, some 78 percent of Turks supported joining the EU. Recent polls show it’s down to 45 percent. Only 25 percent think Turkey will ever be admitted to the EU, but 75 percent think that the EU reforms have been good for Turkey.
“So people prefer the process,” he concluded.
When asked directly whether he thinks that the EU will ever let Turkey join, Bagis said no, not unless the current attitude changes.
“Turkey will be like Norway. We will end up like European standards and very closely aligned with the EU, but not as a member.”
Like Norway? That would be a great spot for Ukraine to be in economically.
Kyiv Post chief editor Brian Bonner can be reached at [email protected].
