For decades, EU membership was probably the issue most sold by dream merchants in Turkey. Selling dreams started in the 1980s, gained momentum in the 1990s and peaked approximately in the first decade of the current government. The propaganda that if we make these reforms we will be one step closer to the EU or if we solve the Cyprus problem we will be almost there has been circulating. The EU issue was turned into such a huge garbage bag that anything could fit in it. While the PKK’s demands from Turkey were first presented as what we needed to do in terms of human rights and freedoms within the framework of the EU acquis, later on it was almost openly taken to discussions on federation in the name of democratizing Turkey. While Greece and the Greek Cypriots were cooking on our necks during that period, they never failed to ask us when we would withdraw our troops from Cyprus or when we would officially register our full acceptance of Greece’s theses in the Aegean. The Armenian diaspora and the circles backing Armenian slander were also on full watch with their own agenda. The terror of the pundits on television and in newspapers was so tedious that everyone in their right mind was lamenting that Turkey was being turned into Germany, Japan or Italy, which had been occupied at the end of the Second World War, and was being held responsible for everything to everyone. The only difference was that the other countries had fought a big war, with terrible losses and destruction, and had lost the war. But Turkey, in the name of democratization, was treated like a country that had lost the war.
The EU, unable or unwilling to openly say no to Turkey, a country with a population too large to fit into the European Union, a strategically difficult geography and, more importantly, a culturally unpopular country, played a decades-long game with Ankara. As anyone who carefully followed the documents prepared by the EU during the so-called negotiation process immediately realized, the aim was not to make Turkey a member at the end of a certain preparation and negotiation process, but on the contrary, to take all measures to block its path, and it did just that.
December 17, 2004 decisions and the negotiating framework document
For example, Article 23 of the EU summit conclusions of December 16-17, when Turkey was given the date for negotiations, was far from providing a roadmap on how Turkey would become a member and roughly how soon. For the first time in the EU enlargement process, the negotiations would be open-ended and the outcome would not be guaranteed from the beginning. Moreover, even if Turkey were to become a member by accident one day – which was made virtually impossible – this membership was virtually up for grabs because permanent derogations would be in place. In other words, a member state would not be able to benefit from some of the EU’s rights and facilities in perpetuity. For example, Turkey would be permanently excluded from agricultural and structural policies, meaning that Turkey, with a lower per capita income than most of the other members, would not be able to share in the funds provided by these policies. However, the exclusion of a full member country should normally be limited to temporary periods of five or ten years. In fact, a ten-year transition period was envisaged for the ten countries that became members in 2004, whereas for Turkey these derogations were made permanent. Moreover, a permanent derogation was also mentioned for free movement. The content of these summit decisions, one of the EU’s mandatory documents, was further hardened and imposed on Turkey, which started negotiations in 2005, as the Negotiating Framework Document.
In this document, the recommendations of EU institutions – e.g. resolutions of the European Parliament, etc. – were also made mandatory for Turkey and reinforced with other conditions. In 2004, Turkey was obliged to sign the Harmonization Protocol with the EU, which had to be passed by the Turkish Parliament and put into practice. If it did so, trade with the island of Cyprus would have to be carried out through the customs of the pirate Greek Cypriot state using the name of the Republic of Cyprus, and the TRNC would/would have become a signboard state. Moreover, the ships and planes of this pirate state would be able to use Turkish ports and airports. On the other hand, Turkey was also ordered to recognize this pirate state, which was already a member of the EU according to the Negotiation Framework Document, and to exchange embassies. Everything that was unacceptable, from the recognition of the Armenian genocide slander to the opening of the closed borders with Armenia, was included in these documents. The aim was to keep Turkey in this game for a while, to extract important concrete concessions from it, especially on Cyprus and the Aegean, and after harassing it with such demands, to make Ankara walk away from the table saying ‘take your unity and go to hell’. In order to achieve this goal, a capacity to digest was added to the documents. Accordingly, even if Turkey fulfilled everything that was ordered, the EU would not allow membership due to a lack of absorptive capacity.
The Wikileaks documents that came to light in the following years were full of examples that illustrate this scheme very well. When America was telling its European allies how important it was to keep Turkey busy with this deception, it was pointing out that a Turkey that left or was removed from the EU process would oppose many of the things that America wanted to do in the Middle East, especially the construction of Kurdistan, but that a Turkey that was kept in the EU harmonization process would reduce such risks by keeping it distracted with expectations. In fact, this is exactly what happened in the end. The Greek Cypriot state, which did not understand this big game well enough, blocked Turkey’s negotiation chapters related to the Customs Union on the grounds that Turkey had not put the Harmonization Protocol into effect. When the financial crisis erupted two years later, shaking first Greece, then the southern countries and then most of the EU, the EU’s gilding began to fall off for Turkey and Ankara’s enthusiasm for membership began to wane. Then came the showdowns within the current ruling party and the government, freed from the shackles of the EU, began to object to America’s Kurdistan project in the Middle East. And the Turkey-EU negotiations became increasingly unsustainable and stalled/stopped.
The process full of dangerous articles
What could be the purpose of making statements now as if they want to restart this process? We have to ask this question because even if the EU side is wrong and decides to restart this process, the opening of important chapters blocked by the Greeks may not be possible even if we try to give the TRNC to the Greeks. Such a period was tried many times during and after the Annan Plan years. The current government, with the policies it pursued then, had already given up on the TRNC but could not do so. When the Greek-Greek side sees that Turkey is about to make concessions, they raise their demands and expectations so high that Ankara becomes unable to make concessions. As the late Denktaş succinctly put it, it is thanks to Greek-Greek fanaticism that we have not made any major mistakes so far.
To summarize, EU membership with the current acquis is not possible for the structural reasons mentioned above. Moreover, a membership envisaged/designed by this acquis would be a membership so lopsided that it cannot be compared to the membership of other member states. A Turkey that is permanently excluded from Agricultural and Structural policies, that does not have the right to free movement and even, as stated in the documents in question, a Turkey that does not have the right to vote and authority in the EU institutions in proportion to its population… As I have always said as an academic who was constantly criticizing this course in those years, the EU’s membership of Turkey with that acquis would be nothing more than selling our current relations as EU membership. Therefore, it is in Turkey’s interest to opt out of this process and what should be done is to transform the customs union with the EU into a free trade agreement in an appropriate environment and get rid of our obligation to apply the EU’s customs tariffs.
If some people are suggesting that if we raise the EU issue, this will lead to an influx of capital and direct investment from the West into Turkey, it should be well known that this is not true. Turkey’s international image is negatively affected as the EU responds negatively to every statement of the Turkish side in this direction. On the other hand, we should also be aware that it is not possible for Turkey to pursue an independent and self-interested foreign policy if it re-enters the negotiation process with the EU, that is, within the EU’s punching range. If we think that we can talk about the EU and talk about a two-state solution in Cyprus, or that we can enter the EU process and at the same time fight the PKK and the PYD/YPG in Syria, we are deeply mistaken. On the other hand, if we dream of a quick EU membership by turning multipolarity into an opportunity, it is necessary to put it that way, because this cannot be done without throwing the existing Turkey-EU acquis in the trash. And expecting membership from here is just a dream in the foreseeable future, given the current political and cultural atmosphere within the EU. If we do not intend to enter into such a toxic process anyway and we are not in such a dream world, then we may be having strategic communication problems.
