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Europe and Turkey: The New Odd Couple

© Carey Goodman

The way the EU Commission manipulated the accession of Cyprus without accepting the accession of Turkey was quite a conflict averted. The simple fact is that Cyprus complied more fully with the Acquis Communitaire than Turkey did and perhaps ever will. But will that standard of compliance be altered to accommodate a new wave of EU member states?

According to the accession schedule established in 2002 the next EU members (Bulgaria, Romania, and perhaps Croatia) will join in 2007. At that time Turkey still will be in process to harmonize its state legislation to EU standards. In most categories Turkey remains a good distance from partial compliance. This is particularly true in the categories of civil and political rights, but there are many other reasons to delay Turkey's accession. SAs a new member, Turkey would change the entire dynamic of small states/large states coalitions. Turkey's population exceeds the populations of all the recent members' intake combined. Beyond that, Turkey's population is growing rapidly, and the free movement of goods, capital, and labor ideally would enable Turkish labor to displace other members' indigenous labor. Those who now worry about the low-cost Polish and Czech labor influx will trebble their worry after Turkish accession.

Likewise Turkey lacks a very consumer-oriented market for imports. Turkey welcomes all the foreign direct investment it can secure, but its economic problems lower its consumer market reliability. This does not suggest investing in Turkey is unprofitable; it implies the standard connotation of economies of scale must be revised.

The Commission recognizes the complexitite of Turkish accession and the general need to slow the accession process. As the report on Turkiish accession reveals, the next group of applicant states must progress far until they are harmonized sufficiently to begin entry negotiations. The Enlargement Commissioner admits Turkey will require at least another decade until it attains the eligibility to begin serious entry discussions. Even after that much time elapses, Turkey still is not assured a place among EU members.

Despite all the talk of the "new Europe", memory there is long. Turkey may have the best intentions to reform and comply with the Acquis Communitaire, but there always will be a sense of distrust and a wish to constrain Turkey's influence. With Turkey entering as a large state, the other large states may be threatened although Commission voting now is one vote per state. Despite the change in Commission voting, a consolidated agreement among large states or an obvious divergence among large states can influence powerfully the smaller states' allignment. The differing national interests and the different factors that motivate those interests may offer the concept of a consolidated foreign policy an additional set of unique challenges.