Erdoğan’s new strategy for the EU

For looking at former developments we often notice that negotiations were conducted by conservative parties but agreements concluded and signed by social democrats. Don’t be surprised if the CHP leads and signs the full membership agreement in this phase.

In past years what surprised the part of society that attaches importance to our EU relations was that some CHP members spoke like opponents of the EU. But it is impossible for the CHP to be an EU opponent.

Europe means freedom of thought.

Europe means respect for human rights.

Europe means defending employee rights.

Europe means equality among humans.

Europe is a temple for social democrats, so to speak. The strongest defendants of the EU idea are almost always social democrats in every country.

If we take a look at CHP’s past we will notice that they always supported our path to Europe. From İnönü to Baykal, the CHP has always been in the front during this process. As a matter of fact, reforms between 2000 and 2004 have been made with the help of the CHP. It is difficult to think that the same CHP would oppose the EU at the cost of just opposing the Justice and Development Party, or AKP.

On the contrary, instead of accusing the AKP of "slow movement" and exercising pressure, an attitude of opposing the EU has made the party lose points.

That’s what the opposition does, so what does the government do?

An interesting mobilization has started regarding the EU project. I wanted to share my impressions obtained from Ankara’s atmosphere. Naturally no one expects any action before local elections. Actually this is not a preferable situation. For Egemen Bağış wants three topics to be discussed, not two as accustomed to during the European community presidency of the Czechs. And it’s been said openly. And a gesture of goodwill is expected.

However, even two topics are at stake, not to speak of three. The reason is that the Czech presidency period ends in June and steps regarding "opening criteria" for topics to be opened until today have not been taken yet. Especially with local elections at the end of March technical preparations will be delayed further. And when preparations start in April it will be hard to be ready by June. Then the Czech period will be over without opening any topics.

According to information obtained from those close to the prime minister, they will try to accelerate developments regarding our path to the EU in two different areas besides the classical negotiation period.

The prime minister believes that there are two side factors on which it depends for Turkey to be noticed by Europe. The first factor is energy and the second is to become effective in the Middle East. The Nabucco project all of a sudden increased Turkey’s prestige in countries of the EU. It is one of the preferences of the EU not to depend on Russian gas and meet energy needs through other resources. Because the EU was scared about Moscow’s attitude regarding the Russia-Ukraine dispute, the Nabucco project all of a sudden came into prominence. The realization of the Nabucco project depends on the agreement with Turkey. Negotiations in this matter still continue.

The other factor is Turkey’s role in the Middle East. Foremost France, countries of the EU have discovered the importance of Ankara in relations with Iran, Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah. Eyes are often turned to Ankara. Prime Minister Erdoğan believes that if there is progress in these two matters then Turkey’s accession period to the EU will accelerate.

I’m not sure about the result of this evaluation but I don’t want to give up hope thinking that the prime minister would know something.

EU: Know how to pay for it as you spend

A reality that potential EU members like very much is "Europe always protects and looks out for its members and does not sacrifice them to an economic crisis." Meaning they believed that "solidarity" would come first. This security underwent an important test and the 27ers failed.

The nine new countries (Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia) are aground. As soon as they obtained full membership, economic reforms accelerated but at the same time they ran into a 1.7 trillion euro debt. Within this year they are obligated to pay 400 billion euros. If there was not a crisis, this amount would easily be paid, but now it has created a big problem. In fact there is no money and European banks issued the debt. So in the end, not only nine countries, but financials of many countries, foremost Austrian and Italian banks will be in trouble.

During the weekend the 27ers met in Brussels. The nine new siblings told about their situation and asked for 180 billion euros in support in the first phase for the sake of "solidarity."

The crisis is impacting everybody so much that there was no response. They said, "You should have planned more carefully. You are bankrupt because you made unnecessary spending. We too are in a difficult situation. There is no money. The crisis is serious" and thus the discussion was over.

For the first time solidarity received a huge strike.

Of course, we need not think that these nine countries will be abandoned to their fate. There will be new steps depending on the situation. But old applications will cease. Those who spend will look at their own accounts. If solidarity is ignored and Europe cannot operate its strongest protection mechanism then countries that wait in line like Turkey will be forced to reevaluate their attitudes.