Turkey and the EU - Counterpoint
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In the previous issue of the Review, Boris Hanin wrote a scathing article (“Bad for Turkey, Bad for the EU”, 10/21/2005) criticizing Turkey’s membership negotiations and its prospects for EU membership. Mr. Hanin first criticized the economic viability of integrating relatively poor Turkey into world’s largest economy, and went on to suggest that polls both in the EU and Turkey opposing Turkish membership will ultimately derail the process.
Turkey does indeed face great economic hurdles. Its GDP per capita is 30% of the EU average, albeit not as far below the GDP per capita of some of the EU’s new members. Turkey’s economy is far more agriculturally based than any EU member’s. The best recipe for growing and restructuring Turkey’s economy, however, lies precisely in reforms the EU accession process demands – reforms that made Eastern and Central Europe’s economies far more liberal, free, transparent and competitive than Western Europe’s and have contributed to six and seven percent growth rates in the EU 10. Enhanced access to the European market will only encourage growth in the manufacturing and services sectors, spurred on by foreign investment lured by tougher fiscal, banking, property, anti-corruption laws and regulation brought on as a result of EU talks. Don’t take my word for it: the EU’s ten new member provide proof positive that this boom occurs long before actually joining the EU. The supposedly disparate impact of the Common Agricultural Policy subsidies is irrelevant because the CAP will probably succumb to the chopping block before Turkey joins.
Turkey should also make Europe’s economy more competitive. As Turkey grows it will provide a burgeoning market of 70 million consumers to Europe’s companies. At the same time, a comparatively cheap Turkish labor force will force Western European companies to become as competitive as Eastern European ones already are. Western Europe faces the inevitability of losing over-paid industrial jobs. At the very least, by going to Turkey they would stay within the European economic space in lieu of flowing to China and India.
Perhaps the greatest challenge to Turkish membership lies in public opinion, which at the moment stands unequivocally against enlargement. As a result of enlargement fatigue and economic doldrums, populism has surged upwards and taken on the guise of Euro-skepticism. Ragging on Brussels has never been more popular than now. That the same number of Europeans oppose Turkish membership as the EU constitution testifies to this, and to the fact that Turkey is falling victim to more general trends.
If there is a real danger to Turkish membership, it lies in diluting the Union, rendering weak the economic, political and social ties of Europe. Yet they are an argument for strictly holding Turkey to the strident criteria for membership, not denying membership altogether – for Turkey can overcome these differences. If in the coming public debate Turkey does decide it wants to undergo at times painful reforms and adopt both the letter and the spirit of the 80,000 page Acquis Communautaire (a set of laws like the US code, not to be confused with the Constitution), fulfilling economic, political and legal criteria, it will become more stable and prosperous than at any point in its past and finally complete the sweeping changes Kemal Ataturk initiated eighty years ago to become a Western country in name and spirit – a worthy member for the European Union.
