Turkey and the European Union. Mountains still to climb

There remain formidable obstacles to Turkish membership of the European Union, not least in Turkey itself

THE Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is cross with critics who attack his government for doing too little to prepare for accession talks with the European Union, due to start on October 3rd. These critics claim that, whereas big reforms were introduced in the months leading up to December 17th, when Mr Erdogan secured the precious October date at an EU summit, nothing has been done since. Some even point to an upsurge in Turkish nationalism as a sign of a backlash against the idea of joining the EU.

In a recent interview with The Economist, Mr Erdogan dismissed such criticism as unfair. He talked darkly of a “campaign against us”. He said his government would do “whatever is required of us, take whatever steps are necessary”, insisting that “we are fully committed to the EU process.” He conceded that a big test would be implementing the reforms, as this requires “a change of mentality”. As for critics' gripes that he has failed to appoint a top EU point man, he claimed that there was no rush, as he himself would be in overall charge of the negotiations.

So all is set fair for October 3rd? Not quite. Formally, Turkey must fulfil two more conditions. The first is to bring into force its new penal code, which should happen in June. The second is to sign the protocol extending the EU-Turkey customs union to the ten new EU members that joined last year - including Cyprus. This Turkey is now ready to do, despite fretting that it may imply some recognition of the Greek-Cypriot government.

Yet other problems are sure to appear. The December summit almost foundered over the precise wording on Cyprus. Everybody is aware that Croatia lost its promised date of March 17th for the start of membership talks, because the EU decided it was not complying with The Hague war-crimes tribunal. They also know that Cyprus will haunt negotiations with Turkey far beyond October. As the Greek-Cypriot president, Tassos Papadopoulos, gleefully noted in December, he will have many opportunities to veto Turkish entry: the negotiations could last for ten years or more.

Two more immediate problems are the French and Dutch votes on the EU constitution in two weeks' time. Mr Erdogan protests that Turkey should not have been dragged into the debate on the constitution, since the two issues are quite unconnected. But the fact is that, in both countries, Turkey's putative membership has been a significant weapon for the no campaigns. The leaders of France and the Netherlands favour opening talks with Turkey. But if either country votes no, their governments will come under pressure at least to postpone, and possibly to call off, the negotiations with Turkey.

The odds still favour the opening of talks, if only for fear of the fallout from not opening them. No country that has begun negotiations with the EU has not been offered membership. Yet the obstacles to Turkey will remain huge even after talks begin - and they go well beyond Cyprus.

Public opinion within the EU is mostly hostile, for a start. France's president, Jacques Chirac, has promised to consult French voters in a referendum before admitting Turkey, and other countries may follow suit. In Germany, the opposition Christian Democrats are against full membership for Turkey, although they will not block talks once they have begun. The new (German) pope is on record against Turkish entry - though, as Mr Erdogan sardonically observes, the Vatican is not an EU member. That his AK party is in the Christian Democrats' umbrella group, the European People's Party, seemingly counts for little.

Yet, as one EU diplomat in Ankara says, the biggest obstacle to Turkish membership is not the EU: it is Turkey. In part, this is a question of understanding. The Turks see EU accession as a matter of genuine negotiation: if they make concessions, they expect concessions in return (eg, on northern Cyprus, see next article). In reality, the talks are just about assuming the obligations of the EU's acquis communautaire. These include not just boring single-market measures but such broader concerns as human rights, the treatment of minorities and religious and democratic freedoms.

Mr Erdogan insists that none of these is any longer a problem for Turkey. His reforms over the past year included scrapping state security courts, cementing civilian control of the army, allowing Kurdish-language teaching and broadcasting, and shaking up the police and judiciary. Yet negative incidents happen too often: Christian churches are harassed, the Greek Orthodox seminary near Istanbul remains closed, a new military crackdown has begun against Kurdish PKK terrorists (and civilians) in the south-east. The prime minister talks of “provocations”, a word he uses to describe a women's protest in early March that was broken up violently by police in front of the television cameras.

As for rulings against Turkey by the European Court of Human Rights, he says the government disputes most of them. This week the ECHR ruled that the 1999 trial of the PKK leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was “unfair”. Mr Erdogan says that he cannot interfere in Turkey's independent courts. In response to broader concerns of human-rights groups for Kurds, he wonders where they were when he was jailed in 1999 for reading an Islamist nationalist poem in public, before they rushed to Diyarbakir to back local mayors.

Turkey has clearly improved in its observance of human rights and its treatment of Kurds and other minorities, but it still has a lot more to do to match European standards. This makes a recent speech by General Hilmi Ozkok, the army's chief of staff, interesting and, in some respects, troubling. The general observed that Turkey had a security interest in northern Cyprus, that allegations of genocide against Armenians in 1915 had no basis and that the Americans were not doing enough to stamp out PKK terrorists in northern Iraq. He also stressed that secularism was the driving force of Turkey's democracy, and that the Turkish state must remain an indivisible whole.

It might seem odd that a general should say any of these things publicly now, but in Turkey the army still plays a key role in upholding Ataturk's secular legacy. In effect, the generals have embraced the country's EU aspirations, but only on the basis that EU membership will support and not undermine that legacy. Yet a strand of Turkish opinion clearly frets that support for religious and minority freedoms may conflict with Ataturkism; and that acceptance of more autonomy for Kurds may threaten Turkey's territorial integrity.

General Ozkok's conclusion was that saying yes or no must be a right not only for the EU, but also for Turkey. It would be an irony if, after working so hard to overcome European hostility to their joining the club, the Turks themselves came to decide that the rules were too onerous - but it is not impossible to imagine.

There remain formidable obstacles to Turkish membership of the European Union, not least in Turkey itself.