An asset but not a model: Turkey, the EU and the wider Middle East 1. A success story for EU foreign policy, but what next? Many politicians and commentators tend to disparage the EU’s nascent foreign policy. They should travel to Turkey. It is true that the EU has a poor record in making its mark on global crises. But its ability to exert influence in countries wishing to join the EU has been nothing short of revolutionary. In recent years, successive Turkish governments, and especially the new AKP government led by Recep Tayyip Erdo˘gan, have passed rafts of reform packages. These reforms have brought Turkey into line with the EU’s exacting Copenhagen membership criteria on democracy and human rights. The prospect of EU accession has made issues that had been political taboos for decades, such as the role of the army in Turkish politics, suddenly ripe for reform. This form of ‘regime change’ EUstyle is cheap, voluntary and hence long-lasting. If enlargement is by far the EU’s most successful foreign policy tool, then Turkey could be the EU’s biggest success in foreign affairs. At the December European Council, the heads of state and government will have to decide whether and when to open accession talks with Turkey. EU leaders are rightly mindful of public opposition and the effects that Turkey’s membership could have on the Union’s cohesion and capacity to act. But the best way for the EU to consolidate and anchor Turkey’s democratisation process is by giving Turkey the green light to start accession negotiations. Moreover, EU leaders should make that choice in a spirit of self-confidence and optimism, not resignation and dejection. It would be a triumph of EU foreign policy to welcome a successful Turkey, which has laid to rest the ghosts of military authoritarianism and chronic economic instability. Europeans should say, loudly and repeatedly, that no
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one else has managed to transform, in a peaceful and deliberate manner, the political system of a country as large and complex as Turkey. From its inception, the EU’s international approach has contrasted sharply with that of the US. The preferred US method for dealing with foreign countries is direct, initially awe-inspiring and heavily military in nature. The downside of this type of engagement is that it is also mostly short-term, superficial and expensive. The EU’s approach is the opposite: indirect, underwhelming and economic-legal in nature. But the benefits are that EU foreign policy is long-term, structural and comparatively cheap. As Mark Leonard, the Director of the Foreign Policy Centre, has rightly pointed out: “upon entering the EU’s sphere of influence, countries are changed for ever”.1 The EU’s track record in dealing with the instability and insecurity in its backyard is markedly more impressive than that of the US. Just compare the success that the EU has had in securing the transitions 1 Mark Leonard, in central and eastern Europe – and in ‘The road to a cool goading Turkey to go down that path Europa’, New as well – with the failure of US policies Statesman, June to achieve lasting stability in 16th 2003. Colombia or Peru. Hence, European leaders and citizens should be proud that Turkey is becoming the latest and most impressive example of the EU wielding ‘soft power’, the ability to shape international events by attraction rather than coercion.The EU has successfully changed critical aspects of Turkey’s political and legal systems in a way that the US, despite having a long and intimate relationship with Ankara, has never managed to do. It is a great pity that so few Europeans are willing to describe and sell the EU-Turkey relationship as a geostrategic success story for the EU, and a vindication of its distinctive foreign policy style.
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