Posts Tagged ‘Turkey’
Questions for Mr Fuele
Posted by: Peter Sain ley Berry in EU on January 26th, 2010
Last week I wrote about how those making policy – or undertaking any serious activity at all – should first ask themselves ‘what are we really trying to do here?’ But there is another injunction on similar lines which is just as vital, especially as we all tend to get carried away on a flood of short-term political excitement: it is to ask ‘and the ultimate consequence will be?’ The latter in particular is a question that could usefully be addressed to the new Czech Commissioner for Enlargement-designate, Mr Stefan Fuele.
You can see how these injunctions work together by considering – as Mr Fuele will now be doing for the next five years or so – the delicate matter of further European Union enlargement and specifically the controversial issue of Turkish entry, which has again been in the news this week.
The Spanish Presidency is pledged to carry forward Turkey’s candidacy, just as other states, such as Austria, have pledged themselves to fight a rear-guard action through a referendum. It may be 327 years since the Turks waved their scimitars outside the gates of Vienna but the scar from this earlier ‘clash of civilisations’ has not quite yet healed.
Perhaps I should say that I am neutral on the subject of Turkish entry. I can envisage a successful European Union with Turkey inside it and one with Turkey outside it. What I can’t envisage is that these two European Unions would be identical. They will not – they would be radically different.
Nor can I accept that it will be possible to draw a line after Turkish accession and keep out any other countries to the north and east. If Mr Fuele thinks that would be possible then he should think again. The Ukraine, which has a rather better claim to be European than Turkey and which needs support from its western neighbours every bit as much, has long had its eye (and why not?) on a European Union future. With the Ukraine come other nations: the three countries of the Caucasus, Moldova and Belarus.
These countries arrive in addition to those whose entry ticket (sooner or later) has been more or less assured: the candidates Croatia and Macedonia; the would-be candidates Bosnia-Herzogovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, Albania; and the ‘apply anytime you want’ countries of Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
If Mr Fuele is thinking about drawing lines around EU enlargement then it will be infinitely easier to draw a line today than tomorrow and certainly this side of Turkey’s potential entry rather than after it.
You see when people debate whether Turkey should join the Union they do so against the assumption of the existing 27 member states (or 28 if we assume that Croatia’s entry is close). If this were the case then, yes, Turkey could be accommodated, without vastly changing the existing Union.
Nevertheless, the balance between rich countries and poor (and therefore the EU budget) would still be tilted decisively in the latter’s direction. It would be harder to police human rights and governance standards of the sort that continue to give problems in some of the more recently adhering states (simply because there would be more problems distributed over a wider area) And there would be an increased danger that the general high standard of probity in these matters across the former Union would be diluted ).
These are real issues but not ones that could not be overcome with sensitivity and commitment. And against the negatives there exist real advantages, both political and economic, in bringing Turkey on board.
But all this is based on a false premise. For Turkey will not be joining the Union as it is now. Turkey does not come to the door alone – even though that is what both the Turks and the champions of Turkish entry might wish. Whether we like it or not Turkey brings with it a whole family of nations to the east and the west – including the Ukraine.
It really is not sufficient to dismiss the Ukraine – as Mr Fuele did before the European Parliament – by saying he had an ‘open mind’ on the subject of its possible future accession. Nor is it good enough to say Ukraine will not be ready for entry until many years in the future. Time goes by quickly; before we know it we shall find ourselves far in the future. By not preparing to act now we are, in effect and by default, taking an irrevocable decision about the future shape, prosperity and governance of the Union.
What would the Union look like, how would it function, how would the budgets work if seven Balkan states, Turkey, the Ukraine, and five other peripheral states accede in the next thirty years? Two large countries and twelve small countries? This is the enlargement package that Mr Fuele must consider, and consider as a whole, and consider now.
Of course, it is not impossible to imagine a Union of 40 plus states, but if it is to remain a homogeneous unit it will inevitably be a weak, diffuse body. The alternatives to this are either a federal state with central democratic government, or in effect two Unions, a two speed Europe of inner and outer unions.
By ruling out the idea of a ‘privileged partnership’ for Turkey (which could then be extended to other states) as he did at his recent European Parliament hearing Mr Fuele is both ducking this challenge and closing off his options.
It seems to me the longer we fail to face up to the fact of a potential Union of 40 plus states and the constitutional challenge that this would represent, the more painful will the reality turn out to be. What will happen here will affect significantly every European citizen. We do neither ourselves, nor Turkey, any favours by dissimulating.
I ended my blog last week by writing that it was not too soon for us to be starting to think about a new constitutional settlement, one designed to come into force in ten years time. I was writing then about democracy and the need for the European Parliament to ensure some greater political coherence within the European Commission. But you can see how such a settlement needs to look wider and to provide for the structures that will keep us together as Europe grows.
The picture of Mr Fuele is courtesy of the European Parliament.
Hallo, Good Evening and Welcome
Posted by: Peter Sain ley Berry in EU on February 17th, 2009
Hallo! And welcome to my blog – ‘A View from the Outfield.’ Having written columns for EUobserver for the last four years or so, the format will be changing and I shall be joining distinguished colleagues, Nic, Bruno, Hajo and Honor here in our own blogosphere.
Living in Britain, I have never been a European ‘insider’ – but my career has frequently run alongside the great river of European construction. I have written about the Union, assisted on projects, travelled about Europe and of course engaged in the great British European political debate.
‘The outfield’ is a cricketing term. It refers to the players who inhabit that part of the ground on the periphery of the action. These may have great influence on the game, taking a distant catch or retrieving a ball short of the boundary. Outfielders gain a sense of perspective from their position.
History, like geographical distance can give an equally vital perspective. It helps us to see the woods as a whole and not to get lost within the forest. And if there has been one overarching theme in my previous columns it has been to distinguish between those broad rivers that flow slowly in this direction or that and the chiff-chaff of events blowing hither and thither on which analysis is often focused.
Yet looking to history to discover where the broad rivers came from prompts other questions about where they are going. Let me illustrate with a question that I am frequently asked: ‘Should Turkey join the European Union?’
To which I find it very hard to respond. For before answering this question we have to ask the broader question about the sort of future European Union we want.
I also say ‘Do you mean Turkey alone?’ Or do you mean Turkey, Ukraine, Belarus, the Caucasus and so on? Official thinking here seems confused: the Commission says that Turkey is short to medium term, with the rest long term and perhaps even never. Which seems reasonable enough until you consider that each accession is not an isolated event. Ukraine’s path is facilitated by Turkish entry and the timescale between Turkey joining and the Ukraine following is unlikely to be more than ten years.
I am philosophically neutral on this. But what I do want to see is something properly debated – a long-term plan – and not some piece of political ad hocery by politicians determined to flag up a ‘trophy’ that can be written into their obituaries.
It is true, we have a Committee of Wise People under the sagacious leadership of Felipe Gonzales supposed to be considering such questions. ‘Where should Europe’s final boundaries lie?’ ‘What should the Union’s eventual competences be?’ What adjustments to Europe’s machinery of government may we need?’ And so on.
These matters should be the stuff of popular debate. Although we have an election to the European Parliament in prospect in a very few months it is safe to say that the would-be parliamentarians are unlikely to trouble their electors’ heads with such weighty matters.
And here we run into another fundamental problem, which is the yawning gap between ordinary Europeans and European Government. I use the term European Government because quite clearly we are governed at European level as well as being governed at the member state level, the regional level and often various local levels as well; (for that matter we are ‘governed’ after a fashion at the global level too through the United Nations).
Good governance implies the broad consent of the people for the system of government itself (whatever form it may take) as well as the opportunity, at regular intervals, to change political direction by voting in an alternative set of politicians with an alternative set of policies. Clearly, despite having a European Parliament, we cannot say this applies to the Union.
The Commission will tell you that widening and deepening can go hand in hand. True they can. But what they do not say is that widening of borders and deepening of integration can only go hand in hand with a simultaneous degree of widening and deepening of democratic consent.
In its developmental stages the European Union was not very wide and not very deep. It developed an enlightened ‘community model’ which commanded a degree of acceptance sufficient for the limited governance it had to bear. The Union has widened and deepened since, but, the degree of acceptance, the degree of democratic control over the executive, hasn’t.
We ordinary folk cannot vote to bring Turkey in; we cannot vote for a party that backs a wider, shallower union over one that backs a narrower, deeper union. Meanwhile, major change, including monetary union and enlargement proceeds.
It is that feeling of powerlessness, in my view – that the development of the Union is some runaway train beyond democratic control – that is concerning and causes the revolts against the otherwise broadly sensible measures to reform Europe’s constitutional structures.
Besides, while we have been focused on the Constitutional and Lisbon treaties a major constitutional change has taken place in the Union, unwritten, unheralded, almost unnoticed and one which is accelerating.
This is the shift in power – and especially the power of political initiative – from the European Commission to the European Council and to the larger states in the European Council at that. Partly this has been an unintended consequence of enlargement – from 15 to 27 – and the complexities that that has caused for the ‘community method;’ partly it has been due to democratic tensions, partly it follows the inability of the Commission to give political weight to Europe’s trading power.
And partly it is a result of the failure of the European Parliament properly to articulate the voices of the people and to put itself at the forefront of European development. Sadly, the Parliament is supine: too concerned with its own procedures and privileges even to decide where it should sit. To those of us brought up on tales of parliaments that defied kings and armies, tanks and artillery, one despairs that this European Parliament will ever do anything more important, collectively, than twiddle with regulations. That may be a harsh judgement – I would so much like to be proved wrong – but it is the view from the outfield.
