Turkey-European Union Relations

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Influences, impact and paradox: Turkish attitude towards the European Union

Turkey is a country which has long standing relationships with the European Union. The country has long been applying for the European Union membership (Togan, S. 1019). Turkey has continued to embrace western culture due to its geopolitical position and the friendliness of Ataturk towards western ideologies.

Thus, it has continued to westernize its system such that its effects have been felt throughout every sector of the Turkish society. The country also became a member of NATO thereby taking a position against the communism during the period of the iron curtain (Avrupa’ya Hayir Diyebilen Turkiye 157).

There have been a lot of passionate moves by the Turkish government to embrace the Middle Eastern culture. This has led the government to establish relationships with its eastern and North African neighbours. The country has also been involved in major peace initiatives in the Arab world.

It is important to note that its strong relationship with the US also made the country a strong Israeli ally. However, this relationship cooled down when Turkey supported the Palestinians in Gaza. This cooling came at the same time with the moving away of Turkey from the EU due to its foreign policies.

The country has therefore made several alterations to its domestic policies in order to comply with EU standards. For instance, the country abolished death penalty. Turkey also had a positive attitude towards the Annan Plan in the UN-led Referendum to unite Northern (Turkish) and the Southern (Greek) Cypriots. It opened the border with Armenia and improved its relations with Greece.

It is thus appropriate to state that Turkey’s attitude will only be enhanced by having it to solve different issues. Some of the issues involve the period in which Turkey reformed and reorganized its policies to synchronize with those of EU. This actually corresponds to the electoral victory of AKP.

This party single handily formed the next government that oversaw great steps towards the EU, among them a return to negotiations. AKP reduced the role of its military in the National Security Council. Also, the party abolished death penalty (Anderson 22). These changes depicted the party as one that was committed to integrate with EU and also as a solution to some of the country’s problems.

It is important to note that all these changes took another turn in the year 2005. This is because the events that followed after this year made Turkey to move away from the EU. Thus, during the 2011 election agendas, the EU was not mentioned in most of the political parties’ election propaganda. Currently, there has been a government regulation to ban the use of internet and to infringe on the rights of the media houses.

The AKP has continued to grow in Islamic agenda thereby getting closer to the Arab world and consequently cooling of relations with Israel. Thus, the government has switched back to the previous nationalist stubborn attitude towards Cyprus (TUSIAD 4). The foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu has also led the Turkish foreign policy whereby the axis shift has actually become so hard to neglect (Barysch 48).

Since AKP has been affiliated with Islam, it has been forced to dance to the tune of its electorate (Cizre 118). The party still held certain reservations that come as a result of tensions that exist in the country. Thus, it claimed to be in support of human rights yet still held on to religious beliefs that undermine the same human rights (Onar 279).

This meant that it can contravene the EU legislation if it is pressured by the electorate. Also, Turkey, which is a powerful country, adhered to Pan-Islamic model with the ability to extend its influence far and wide into other countries such as the Middle East, Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Persia (Daloglu 4).

The bid for Turkey to join the European Union has been considered as one of the most controversial in the history of the European Union. When viewed through the lens of Turkey’s long struggle to adopt modernity, opponents at the EU seem to be only contributing to a national debate that has been ongoing for a long time (Meral 59).

In this case, the struggle has been between traditionalist Islamists and westernizing Kemalists, both competing for Turkey’s soul (Gulmez 427). The attitude of Turkey is in direct proportion with making progress in domestic and foreign policies to please the EU. Since the majority of the Turkish people are Muslims, Turks appear euro-sceptic for reasons such as the need for national protection of minorities (Levin, P. 12).

Turkey is still a highly segmented society whereby there has always been a clash between the societies. There has to be consensus regarding EU membership. Otherwise, it will be difficult for the government to continue pushing through the necessary changes in TBMM.

From the European perspective, it is factual to exclaim that Turkey’s Islamic identity is the number one crash to Turkey’s Europeanness. Islamists believe that Turkey is more Eastern that European. Thus, approval of EU membership is only supported by those who do not support seriat (Carkoglu 173).

The concept of Turkish nationalism as defined in Kemalism remains a key factor in determining the extent of Islam’s influence (Nora Onar 171). In Kemalism, the Turkish people had to get used to deep-seated secularism whereby the mosque had to be separated from the state in an uncompromising manner. Aybar states that, this is because the vision of the modern Turkish republic is strongly embedded in it (341).

For those who support the Europeanization of Turkey, westernization forms a major argument in their opinion (Onis, 365). However, according to Oguzlu, at a time when the support for EU accession is declining abroad, the debate is no longer restricted to the advantages and disadvantages of the accession (98).

This sentiment is even echoed by French president when he said that he did not think that Turkey has any place in Europe (Arikan 28).

It is beyond doubt that the Islamic character influences Turkish politics, which later influences its EU membership. According to Flam, the Islam factor has really contributed to the great controversy (203). This is because Islamic nature is deeply rooted in Turkish politics (Tekin 292).

There has been a rise in Islamic character of Turkish domestic politics that have been considered as major setbacks in Turkish aspirations to join the EU, a fact that has been shared by Rahigh-Aghsan (44).

It is thus important for Turkey to calm down, take a step back, lay out all its cards on the table and say ‘wait a minute, let us see all the options and chances we have’. By doing this Turkey will certainly find the correct way (Erhan et al. 229). This will also help to understand more on how the citizens view the relationship between EU and Turkey.

Works Cited

Arikan, Harun. Turkey and the EU: an awkward candidate for EU membership? London: Routledge, 2008.

Aybar, Bulent. “Analysis of attitudes of Turkish citizens towards the effect of European Union membership on the economic, political, and cultural environment”, Turkish Studies, 8.3, (2007): 329-348.

Anderson, Perry. “After Kemal.” London Review of Books 30.18 (2008): 13-22

Barysch, Katinka, Can Turkey combine EU accession and regional leadership? Center for European Reform Policy Brief, 2010.

Carkoglu, Ali. “Who Wants Full Membership? Characteristics of Turkish Public Support for EU Membership.”Turkish Studies 4.1 (2003): 171-94.

Cizre, Umit. “Problems of democratic governance of civil-military relations in Turkey and the European Union enlargement zone”, European Journal of Political Research, 3.1, (2004): 107–125.

Daloglu, Eda. Turkey-EU and Islam: Is Islam a Factor of Negotiations?, London: Routledge, 2010.

Erhan, Cagri; Ozlem Genc and Zerrin Dagci Sakarya. Siyasi Partilerin Avrupa Birliği’ne Bakışı. Ankara 2011

Flam, Harry. “Turkey and the EU: Politics and Economics of Accession”, CESifo Economic Studies 50.1, (2004), 171-210.

Gulmez, Seck. “The EU policy of the Republican People’s Party: An Inquiry on the opposition party and euro-skepticism in Turkey.” Turkish Studies 9.3(2008): 423-436

Levin, Paul. Turkey and the European Union: Christian and Secular Images of Islam. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011

Meral. Ziya. Prospects for Turkey. Legatum Institute, 2 Sept., 2010. Web.

Oguzlu, Tarik. “The impact of ‘democratization in the context of the EU accession process’ on Turkish foreign policy”, Mediterranean Politics, 9.1, (2004): 94-113.

Onar, Nora. “Kemalists, Islamists and Liberals: Shifting Patterns of Confrontation and Consensus.” Turkish Studies 8.2 (2007)

Öniş, Ziya.“Contesting for Turkey’s Political Centre: Domestic Politics, Identity Conflicts and the Controversy over EU Membership.” Journal of Contemporary European Studies 18 (2010): 361-76.

Önis, Ziya. “The Turkey-EU-US Triangle in Perspective: Transformation or Continuity?” The Middle East Journal, 59.2, (2005): 265-284.

Rahigh-Aghsan, Ali. “Turkey’s EU Quest and Political Cleavages under AKP”, Review of European Studies, 3.1 (2011): 43-53.

Tekin, Ali. “Future of Turkey–EU relations: a civilisational discourse”, Futures, 37.4, (2005), 287-302.

Togan, Sübidey. “Turkey: Toward EU Accession”, The World Economy, 27.7, (2004): 1013–1045.

TUSIAD. Cyprus Issue should not harm Turkey’s membership process. Euractiv 21 Nov. 2011. Web.

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