EUROPE
A compromise solution for Turkey's EU ambitions
Summer 2007
Turkey’s EU accession negotiations have become so highly charged, says Cemal Karakas, that it would be better for both parties to stand back and consider a totally new approach. His compromise suggestion is “Gradual Integration”, less than membership but more than the privileged partnership proposed by some
These are difficult times for the accession negotiations between the European Union and Turkey. They are the most complicated in the EU’s enlargement history, and they are different from all the others because Turkish membership is so widely unpopular. Nobody can be in any doubt that the unanswered questions it raises about the political, socio-economical, cultural, religious and geographical limits of the European Union – its finalité – make Turkish membership a highly changed and politically sensitive issue.
Yet the Union can have no interest in renouncing its goal of bringing in Turkey and underwriting its democracy. The opportunity costs would be a serious loss of political credibility on the EU’s side and the rise of nationalism or of political Islam on the Turkish side. The guarantee clauses in the European Council’s Turkey resolution at its December 2004 Summit that opened the way for the negotiations also added that if accession of Turkey is not accomplished, yet both sides still have an interest in deeper cooperation and integration, then “it must be ensured that the candidate state concerned is fully anchored in the European structures through the strongest possible bond.” In light of the European Commission’s decision towards the end of last year to freeze key chapters in the entry process, it’s worth looking in detail at this option.
The exact form of how such a design would look is not set out in the negotiating framework, but nevertheless it was the first time in the EU’s enlargement history that it also reserved an option to assemble some other integration and cooperation model. In doing so the EU demonstrated a paradigm change. In future, not only the capacity of a candidate country to fulfil the accession criteria will be taken into account; the absorption capacity of the EU will also be of central importance.
If the debate over Turkey’s readiness for the EU, and the alternatives to full membership, is gaining renewed significance, within that debate the model of gradual integration could be developed into an attractive option for the EU as well as for Turkey. It proposes a new method of integration, from which a new sui generis form of membership could result.
The key question is which model would work best for Turkey: supranational integration or intergovernmental cooperation? From Ankara’s point of view, any alternative would have to go further than the status quo in which Turkey has been economically attached to the EU via a Customs Union since 1996, and partly attached politically to the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) following the integration of the Western European Union (WEU) into the EU’s structures. As part of the Customs Union, Turkey has had to adopt important parts of the EU’s acquis communautaire notably in regulatory areas like customs, trade policy, competition, and the protection of intellectual, industrial and commercial property. Many obstacles to trade have been removed and common external duties have been introduced, although the Customs Union applies only to industrial goods and food products, not to services, farm produce or textiles. The EU’s protectionism is designed to shield its member states from Turkish competition, and its effectiveness can be judged by the size of the trade surpluses it enjoys. Turkey’s trade deficit with the EU reached €8.4bn in 2005.
The EU-Turkey Customs Union is therefore in a sense undemocratic, because Turkey has had to cede important parts of its national sovereignty without being represented in the EU’s political decision-making mechanisms, and without having any influence on its multinational decision-making process. That is no doubt why, in the history of EU enlargement, no other accession candidate has so far entered into a Customs Union with the EU before accession.
From the European Union’s perspective, alternatives to Turkish accession only make sense if they address Europe’s fear of unlimited freedom of movement of people. Other concerns include, of course, the possibility of transfer payments running into billions of euros from the European structural funds, alarming levels of agricultural assistance, and the serious overextension of the EU institutions.
It is therefore worth looking at the two different designs that could be used as an alternative to full Turkish membership. The supranational design would be based on Article 49 of the Nice Treaty and the European Council’s December 2004 decision which no longer treats Turkey as a “third state” but as a candidate country. The accession process, however, would be conditional as the acquis must be implemented completely before accession. After the possible accession, participation at EU-level with joint decision-making rights in all EU institutions (Commission, Council, Parliament, Court, etc.) is foreseen. As an EU member state, Turkey could participate in such core areas of European integration as the single market. Although the EU’s Resolution on Turkey foresees accession, it nevertheless provides for long transitional periods, specific arrangements and for the first time in history permanent safeguard clauses in areas such as freedom of movement of persons, structural policies and agriculture. The resolution clearly discriminates against Turkey and actually offers her not a full but a “second class membership”. Accession is in any case far from guaranteed, as obstacles like the Cypriot question and now the referendums promised in Austria and France lie in the way of Turkey’s path to the EU.
The second design would be based on intergovernmental cooperation and Article 310 of the Rome Treaty. Turkey would continue to be classified under the Association Agreement as a “third state”, with restricted participation rights in the so-called European Economic Area Plus (EEA +). Proponents of this approach promise Turkey closer cooperation in selected areas like foreign and security policy, culture, immigration, law enforcement, and so on, through bilateral agreements. The most popular model of this design is the Privileged Partnership. It was first discussed in 2002 and was put forth primarily by the Christian Democrats and other more conservative parties in Germany, France and Austria. Its proponents promise Turkey closer cooperation in certain areas (trade, foreign and security policy, culture, immigration, law enforcement, etc.) on the basis of bilateral agreements. The overall scheme for relations would remain the same as in the Customs Union: Yes to decision-shaping but No to decision-making. Turkey and the EU have quite rightly therefore rejected Privileged Partnership. After all, why should a long-time accession candidate be interested in such loose integration options if they (a) rule out joint decision-making rights and (b) deny the prospect of full membership?
Apart from these two designs, there is no other in between form of cooperation or integration. The model of Gradual Integration set out here is less than full membership but more than Privileged Partnership. The aim of gradual integration is that Turkey as a candidate state should as the European Council put it be “fully anchored in the European structures through the strongest possible bond”. It envisions a dynamic institutional three-step pre-accession strategy for Turkey, with the first representing the lowest degree of integration. The duration of each step would be determined by mutual agreement and could, for example, last 10 years. The second step could be begun halfway through the first, say five years into the process. It’s even possible that if a certain level of integration is considered sufficient for either the EU or Turkey, then the two partners might decide to opt for a halt in the whole process. The model also enables both sides to play for time, because the start of each of the next steps is conditional on progress to date. Conditionality of this sort offers Turkey an incentive to continue along the road of democratisation and reform, and at the same time it allows the EU to deepen its own institutional reform process and so prepare itself for the impact of Turkey’s eventual accession.
In contrast to Privileged Partnership, which is a static concept, this model of gradual integration continues treating Turkey as an accession candidate rather than as a “third country”. But accession could only occur once the last of the three steps for integration has been activated, and once again, both sides have to be in full agreement.
To ensure that Turkey’s political integration into the EU is fully credible, Ankara would enjoy full decision-making powers with the EU in those areas that have been already integrated, although it would not have any veto powers in the Council. Leaving aside the politics of it all, from a purely legal standpoint, that right could not in any case be granted because Turkey would not be a full EU member. In the meantime, however, so that Turkey should get to know EU procedures better, Ankara would be entitled to send observers to the EU institutions.
Because Turkey would be only partially integrated into the EU, the present 35 negotiating chapters would have to be unpacked. In practice this would mean that Ankara should simply translate the relevant parts of the acquis into Turkey’s national legislation in the same way that has already been the case for the Customs Union.
This model for gradual integration has of course been tailored for Turkey, but it could also be adapted for other accession candidates because it lends itself to flexibility and a case-by-case approach. But in terms of practical politics, how could this concept of gradual integration be put into effect? Both parties would first have to list the areas that each would like to include in the first step. The focus of these negotiations would probably be where there is the greatest degree of overlap, and where each side sees the greatest advantage.
For the EU, this could be the further democratisation of Turkey and a strengthening of the rule of law, implying inter alia the greater protection of the rights of religious minorities. Negotiations might also envisage additional economic and financial consolidation with the aim of stabilising the volatile Turkish economy. For the EU, greater legal certainty for European companies operating in Turkey would probably be of interest, to say nothing of all issues relating own foreign and security policies.
Another dossier of strong interest to Turkey would probably be that of making the Customs Union more symmetrical, and of deepening the benefits it derives. Ankara would surely want to remove the existing obstacles to Turkey’s trade with Europe in services, unprocessed agricultural produce and textiles. Turkey also clearly has a vital interest in having a real say in decision-making about EU trade policy and on matters like customs and trade quotas. Turkey could also have an interest in EU programmes relating to infrastructure, the environment, education, culture and research. And here the concept of gradual integration would offer the EU substantial cost advantages, because additional support programmes along these lines would cost significantly less than the accession costs that the Commission has estimated at around €20bn a year
Turning to the second and third steps, Europe and Turkey could use these to deepen integration in existing areas, for instance by expanding the Customs Union into a common market which could in the third and last step be developed into certain areas of the EU’s internal market. Both sides also have an interest in the removal of all restrictions of foreign investment in the Turkish economy, and the EU would probably want Ankara to scrap the obstacles that still hinder freedom of establishment of new business and the transnational exchange of services. Other areas to be covered in these later steps could concern the introduction of the euro, financial controls, closer cooperation in combating international crime, illegal immigration and Islamic terrorism.
The advantages of gradual integration are basically that this new approach would give the EU and Turkey time for further reforms, would cost EU taxpayers much less than Turkey’s full membership and would permit the partial integration of Turkey into Europe’s political structures without overstretching the Union institutionally.