Things are not going well with the EU

To see what happened in the Obama-Sarkozy talk, let’s go back a couple of days ago, from the Caen city in France to Washington, D.C. in the United States. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn was there in Washington last week. On the same days the importance of Obama’s Cairo speech at Cairo University in Egypt about the West and Islam was echoed. Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. İlker Başbuğ had contacts mostly focused on the Iraq-Afghanistan-Pakistan-Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, issue. Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu went to New York from Washington to preside at the United Nations General Council session. And in Ankara State Minister for EU Relations Egemen Bağış was saying that the trade union reform was postponed due to the "economic crisis." The reform presumably would’ve helped the opening of a new chapter in membership negotiations. He was giving the reinstatement of the late Turkish poet Nazım Hikmet Ran’s citizenship as an example.

Rehn had contacts with U.S. State Department officials, the World Bank authorities and a group of opinion leaders in Washington. The contacts in advance of Obama’s meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Sarkozy and of the European Parliament elections reflected to the United States the pulse of politics in Europe. Reuter’s news agency announced on June 4 that a couple of issues "including Turkey" were discussed during these contacts. Our sources say the most important issue Rehn talked with the Americans about was Turkey.

Obama sees Turkey as a strategic partner for U.S. national interests. In his first world tour, where he focused on Europe not the Middle East, Obama showed where he sees Turkey. Obama wants Turkey’s membership to the EU and therefore he believes this way the EU-NATO harmonization can be achieved easily. But that was not suitable to the Merkel-Sarkozy politics dominating the crisis environment in Europe. And the European Parliament election process showed no sign of acceptance about Turkey’s accession to the union.But this is not the only issue. As far as the information circling behind the closed doors during Rehn’s visit in Washington, the commissioner mentioned to his American addressees that Turkey had lost appetite too, as much as Europe. Following the contacts, impressions in Washington were that the reform process in Turkey has come to a halt, promises have not been delivered yet, optimism stemmed from having a new minister for EU relations rather than a top negotiator has turned into pessimism shortly. The impressions of one-on-one talks were that Davutoğlu and Bağış have sent different signals to Brussels, and EU officials are not certain if the criticisms and suggestions of EU ambassadors in Ankara were accurately conveyed to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as Ankara always wants to hear good things yet things are in fact not going well in general.

Rehn, though not openly, told Reuters in an interview that the atmosphere about Turkey is not good. He gave the trade union reform as an example. The reform, which has been asked for for the last "three years" and is necessary to open the Social Politics and Employment chapter, is not done yet despite promises given in January and April. Not just these, but for instance, Rhen stresses, the "freedom of expression and media" issues as well. The commissioner in the interview asked not to blame the enlargement for the economic crisis in the EU countries.But even, Iceland (forget about Croatia), which inclines toward being an EU member after the crisis, Norway likely to become an EU member in a short time, and the Serbian membership, were talked about before Turkey during the meetings in Washington. Therefore, by rewinding the tape, so to speak, for a couple of days, it is possible to better understand and better see how the Obama-Sarkozy conflict over Turkey is serious. As Bağış asked Sarkozy and Merkel, "Which do you prefer as a model Recep Tayyip Erdoğan or Osama bin Laden?" he was most probably not comparing a Turkish prime minister with a terrorist but was trying to describe the trouble in Turkey-EU relations. But this is not certainly the question in Europeans’ mind.



Murat Yetkin is a columnist for daily Radikal in which this piece appeared yesterday. It was translated into English by the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review's staff.