Turkey and the European Union. To Brussels, on a wing and a prayer

As expected, the European Commission has recommended the opening of EU membership talks with Turkey

“THE commission considers that Turkey sufficiently fulfils the political criteria and recommends that accession negotiations be opened.” It is no exaggeration to say that Turkey has been waiting 40 years for these words. Now that they have been delivered, Turkish membership of the European Union is not only possible: it is probable. But there are still many hurdles to clear before Turkey arrives.

The commission's recommendation is based on a technical assessment. Europe's political leaders must still agree in December to a date for the opening of talks, which most people now expect to be the second half of 2005. The negotiations will then be long and arduous, lasting for a decade or more, since they will centre on how Turkey adopts some 80,000 pages of EU law. And the process could easily be disrupted, whether by instability in Turkey, or by the rise of parties in western Europe opposed to Turkish membership.

The controversy over Turkey's bid has forced the commission to be tougher than expected in its recommendations. Romano Prodi, the outgoing president, went so far as to talk of a “qualified yes”. The biggest qualification concerns Turkey's respect for human and civil rights. Turkey has made far-reaching reforms in this area, but Mr Prodi stressed that a rhetorical commitment was not enough. He promised that “any breakdown in the progress towards democracy, human rights...and the rule of law will automatically bring negotiations to a halt”. Yet this “emergency brake” is in some ways a statement of the obvious. A few years ago, when Slovakia seemed to be about to elect a populist with anti-democratic tendencies, it was made clear to the Slovaks that EU membership talks would be put on hold.

The second big qualification proposed by the commission concerns immigration. The fear that, once Turkey joins, huge numbers of poor Muslim immigrants will stream west is probably the biggest single impediment to its membership. The commission has not dismissed such fears. Indeed, Olli Rehn, the incoming commissioner for enlargement, said that concerns about immigration were “more or less justified”. Yet free movement of labour is a fundamental EU principle; and any restrictions in previous enlargements have always been temporary.

The commission goes beyond this for Turkey by floating the idea of “permanent safeguard measures”. These would stipulate that, if Turkish immigration were deemed to be disruptive to the rest of the EU, controls on free movement could be re-imposed. Officials insist that this is compatible with the EU's fundamental principles. The Turks dispute this.

Two further nuances went into Mr Prodi's qualified yes. First, the commission is to carry out further studies on the impact of Turkish accession. It is clear that the common agricultural policy and regional funds will be unaffordable unless they are substantially reformed before Turkey joins. Second, the commission will lay more emphasis on implementation, rather than just on the passage of legislation. This stipulation reflects a widespread fear that Turkey might simply pass the right laws, without being able to enforce them.

Similar misgivings exist about another EU applicant, Romania, which also received good news this week. The commission at last certified that it has a “functioning market economy”, a precondition for membership. Both Romania and Bulgaria thus remain on course to join the EU by 2007. But political opposition to admitting Romania so quickly is mounting. Privately, several senior commission officials also have reservations.

Turkish delight

Radiating confidence, Turkey's prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, responded positively to the commission's report. He said it was “generally balanced” and asserted that it had set out a clear perspective for Turkey's accession. The commission's work had now been completed, he added, and he urged EU leaders to follow its recommendation to start negotiations, and to do so immediately. He insisted that he was making reforms because he believed in them, not just for the EU. And he said that “if the European Union has decided to be a Christian club rather than one of shared values, then let it say so now.”

What about the qualifications the commission has added? Many within Mr Erdogan's Justice and Development Party shrug them off as little more than a ruse by European leaders, designed to calm domestic opposition to Turkey's eventual membership. Such optimism may be naive. It is also an attempt to assuage bruised feelings in Turkey about being treated differently from previous applicants. But it could just be a more hopeful sign that Turkish leaders and opinion-makers have abandoned the prickly nationalism and truculence of their predecessors that long made Turkey such a troublesome partner for the EU.

“The truth is that there won't be negotiations,” says one Turkish diplomat. “The EU will lay down the law, and we will have to abide by it.” The reason is that neither Mr Erdogan nor Turkey can afford to pull the plug on Europe. An overwhelming majority of Turks favour EU membership. And that casts Turkey in the role of demandeur in membership negotiations.

Could anything go wrong between now and December? Mr Erdogan must avoid touching off the sort of controversy sparked by his (now abandoned) plan to criminalise adultery; he cannot afford anything that suggests he is a closet Islamist. The Turks need to be less prickly over Cyprus - recently they fell out with the EU over the status of northern Cyprus at a planned foreign ministers' conference, which was cancelled. Above all, they must hope to avoid further big trouble in the mostly Kurdish south-east, where violence has returned and Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels are being killed every day.

It is a tall order, but Mr Erdogan has invested so much in his European dream that he will probably get his date in December. The bigger question is whether that makes Turkish membership inevitable. No country has failed to complete its entry negotiations. But this time, the risk is greater. The leader of the biggest political group in the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pottering, declared this week that non-membership must remain a possible outcome. His German Christian Democrat party is opposed to Turkish entry, favouring a “privileged partnership” instead. And last weekend President Jacques Chirac promised that France will hold a referendum on Turkish entry. Other countries could follow suit. Even if Turkey keeps Europe's leaders on side, it could still fall foul of Europe's voters.

The European Commission has recommended the opening of EU membership talks with Turkey.

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