The 11th Progress Report

I recall how dull the progress reports of 2000 and 2001 were because of the then-coalition government’s failure to deliver on EU harmonization. The reports had no substance and were pointing out retreat rather than progress. This year’s report reminds me those reports. It is a fact that the government did nothing noteworthy in EU work over the last four years.

Rather it found so many different excuses not to go for it. The report contains rambling suggestions like “hurry up in reforms” and points at deficiencies that have been repeated time and again throughout the years. It seems that the report this time is kept short in order not to talk more negative.

Loss of interest at max
On the EU side, a tactic of exaggeration is the case, like in the past four progress reports. Even the most ordinary work is included in the report. The best example is Turkey’s successes in world-famous foreign policy stories that happen only in dreams (with the exception of President Abdullah Gül’s visit to the Armenian capital Yerevan). The report praises positive diplomacy Turkey follows as though it was a major acquis chapter. Another point of appraisal becomes the “working market economy.” Although nothing much has changed since last year, Turkey has been declared a market economy. Frankly there must have been nothing better to state.

As a matter of fact, both parties suffer lack of interest in Turkey’s EU prospects. The Turkish government has been making excuses about the EU bid since 2005. When I wrote this before nobody seemed to care, yet now this unwillingness is being universally admitted. The EU side shows no sensitivity though. Even the most passionate friends of Turkey in the bloc cannot offer anything solid but the same old preaches and incentives. No one is interested to prop up the process.

The EU is pre-occupied by the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty, the Georgian crisis that broke out in early August and now the global financial crisis. Turkey’s accession to the union has no priority compared to these problems. With this state of mind we will welcome 2009. There are two EU-term presidencies up and coming – first a well intentioned yet inexperienced Czech Republic and then Sweden will take the helm. If the impacts of the global financial crisis and the ratification process of the Lisbon Treaty in Ireland continue to be the problems, already-weakened Turkey-EU relations may take a turn for the worse in late 2009. There are no chapters remaining to be opened, except “Information Society and Media” and “Free Movement of Capital.”

In this foggy picture, the only ray of hope is that settlement talks in Cyprus may lead to possible overtures for a permanent solution in 2009. Negotiations for eight chapters, which have been suspended due to Cyprus deadlock, may be resumed.

It is difficult to say the government and decision-makers, in general, have understood the value of the EU membership process in this global financial crisis environment. For instance Rıfat Hisarcıklıoğlu, chairman of the Turkish Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges, or TOBB, while talking about the financial crisis did not include the EU among the anchors Turkey needs to save itself. As we take a turn into a period where everyone is trying to save themselves and as the local elections in March 2009 are approaching, it is very doubtful that the EU accession bid will be remembered.

First the global economic crisis, then the Kurdish issue, then the Ergenekon case and now the debates over the regime, fomented by the Constitutional Court’s announcement about the decision in the closure case against the governing Justice and Development Party, EU-related works may not be, or will never be, on the agenda for a long time. And this is hardly an exaggeration.