Losing interest in the EU?

Despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claims, his critics say that the Turkish government is undermining the country’s efforts to join the EU. Kirsty Hughes reports.

Pro-EU commentators in Turkey are worried that Turkey’s government is losing interest in the EU accession process. Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the country’s prime minister, is criticised for lack of political reform and for down-playing the importance of the EU since his landslide win in a general election last summer.

Yet Erdogan’s government continues to ride high in the polls, as the economy is prospering and many Turks are happy with his handling of the violence in the Kurdish-dominated south-east of the country, including the recent military bombings of, and incursions into, northern Iraq to counter attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

According to Istanbul academic and commentator Cengiz Aktar, the ruling Justice and Development (AK) party is no longer doing anything substantial on the EU. "They are not interested at all in the EU process any more…they don’t know how to handle it," he says. And in Ankara, Atilla Eralp, a professor in international relations at the Middle East Technical University, is also worried by government inertia. "The general public is not interested in the EU, but the informed public is increasingly worried and there are increasing criticisms from Istanbul business," Eralp says.

Aktar is also concerned that the government’s "subcontracting" of the PKK problem to the military will undermine political change. "The government and military are working hand-in-hand, so any political effort to touch the power of the military will be rejected," he says.

At the Brussels office of Tüsiad, the Turkish business federation, Bahadir Kaleagasi is a little more upbeat. "What the government does is not bad. But it needs to do more and better and in a more co-ordinated, transparent and accountable way," he says.

Despite the slow progress with Turkey’s accession talks, Turkish public opinion still supports the EU membership goal. A recent poll by the Open Society Institute in Istanbul showed support up from 51% before last July’s elections to 56% at the end of 2007, with support higher among AK party loyalists.

Hakan Altinay, director of the Open Society Institute, says that "people may be tired of the political criteria and Cyprus but they are interested in EU daily life issues". Kaleagasi agrees that the AK party and the public opinion are "fed up with this debate" on Cyprus and on French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s opposition to Turkey’s accession to the EU. According to Kaleagasi, Tüsiad is pushing the government to focus on concrete issues and the benefits of EU membership, from cleaner water to safer transport, that adopting EU standards involves.

Yet Altinay warns the government that it has to do its homework properly. "It’s nice to publish a roadmap but we have got to do the work. There isn’t even a communications effort at the moment," he says.

Eralp argues that the lack of government enthusiasm for the EU process could become a "critical issue between government and civil society in 2008", adding that "the ‘liberal’ coalition between the two is weakening already because of that". Eralp thinks civil society and business groups will lobby the government in 2008 to speed up reforms, especially on freedom of expression.

Yet last week (10 January), Erdogan hit back at criticism. "There can be no question of weariness on the EU issue," he said. He also announced a tripartite meeting in Germany this spring with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Sarkozy.

But critics point to the failure to amend article 301 of Turkey’s penal code as a key example of reform inertia. The article forbids ‘insulting Turkishness’ and has been used to prosecute several writers in the last two years. Although the government is expected to put a new version of article 301 to parliament in the coming weeks, leaked versions suggest this could involve nothing more than changing the wording to ‘insulting the Turkish nation’. Aktar calls this "window-dressing". Altinay agrees, but adds that if, as proposed, the ministry of justice has to authorise any future 301 cases, this could at least stop the flow of prosecutions.

The government is also finally to publish a draft new constitution in the next month, which could form the centrepiece of a renewed political reform dynamic. But some are worried whether it will be too conservative and Islamist-leaning. Aktar says: "The draft constitution is the only serious project on the table, but how far will they consult? I’m afraid it will be an AK constitution that would be a disaster."

Altinay worries at the long timetable, as a referendum on the constitution is now expected to take place along with local elections in March 2009.

Last week Erdogan published a four-year government legislative programme which he said showed that the government was "not suffering from inertia".

But Altinay is not impressed by what he calls the government’s "lacklustre" performance. "They will never be as reformist again as they were in 2003-04. So people will be working at 60%, not 110%," he says.

For many, slow progress is better than no progress at all.

• Kirsty Hughes is a London-based analyst.

Despite Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s claims, his critics say that the Turkish government is undermining the country’s efforts to join the EU. Kirsty Hughes reports.