7854 bulletin dec 11 - Jan 12 25/11/2011 09:57 Page 1
Forthcoming events 2 December
9 December
23 January
CER/Interel breakfast meeting on The future of the European Commission With Catherine Day, Brussels CER breakfast meeting on What Europe and Britain should do on climate change With John Cridland, London CER seminar on Can Russia escape stagnation? With Igor Yurgens and Dmitri Trenin, London
Forthcoming publications Saving Schengen: How to protect passport-free travel in Europe Hugo Brady The security relationship between Russia and China Dmitri Trenin
EU-Turkey relations: Paralysis or partnership? Katinka Barysch
Recent publications The EU and migration: A call to action Charles Clarke The eurozone and the US: A tale of two currency zones Philip Whyte Russia, China and the geopolitics of energy in Central Asia Alexandros Petersen with Katinka Barysch Why stricter rules threaten the eurozone Simon Tilford and Philip Whyte Governments need incentives to pool and share militaries Tomas Valasek Britain and France should not give up on EU defence co-operation Clara Marina O’Donnell EU climate policies without an international framework Stephen Tindale
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by Katinka Barysch
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IX YEARS AFTER THE START OF accession talks, the EU and Turkey are struggling to keep up a semblance of progress. Having opened talks on 13 chapters of EU law by mid2010, they have not started on a new one for over a year now. Most of the remaining 22 chapters are blocked because of the Cyprus dispute and French opposition to full Turkish membership. And the Turks do not see the point in making difficult changes to trade union laws or public tenders to inch one step forward on a journey that now looks futile to most of them. While almost half of all Turks still want to join the EU, only a third think that they stand a chance of getting in one day, according to a German Marshall Fund survey. At the political level, interest in EU membership is clearly waning. The EU – once the number one issue for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan – was hardly mentioned in the June 2011 general election. The year 2012 will, if anything, be more difficult. The French presidential election in April/May could whip up the kind of anti-Turkey rhetoric that makes many Turks seethe with indignation. And Ankara’s decision to boycott direct contact with the Cypriot EU presidency in the second half of the year is bound to cause further friction with the EU. BRUSSELS OFFICIALS, AWARE OF the damage wrought by persistent deadlock, are trying to broaden the EUTurkey relationship beyond the opening of new chapters. The European Commission suggests a “fresh and positive agenda” by focusing on visas, trade, student exchanges and foreign policy co-operation. Most Turkish diplomats had hitherto rejected any cooperation outside the accession channel lest it divert Turkey towards a ‘privileged partnership’. Now pragmatism seems to have broken out on both sides. However, the new agenda will not be easy to implement. Take visas. Turkey wants visa-free travel – something that Germany and some other EU countries refuse to contemplate. The EU insists that even for the more modest step of relaxing visa requirements, Turkey needs to start taking back all illegal immigrants coming from its territory – a tall order in view of Turkey’s open borders with Syria, Iraq and other neighbours. In trade, Turkey, rightly, wants the EU to take its interests into
account when it negotiates free trade deals with the likes of India and South Korea. So far, the customs union obliges Turkey to open its economy as a result of such deals but it does not get access to new markets itself. Some EU governments are against giving Turkey a voice in complex trade talks. On foreign policy, there is now more dialogue between Turkish and EU officials at all levels. But such talks have not translated into joint policies. On the contrary, Turkey is less inclined to align its foreign policies with those of the EU and insists that real co-operation would entail Erdogan being admitted to EU summits. The EU is unlikely to extend such an invitation, not least because Cyprus does not want to mingle with the leader of a country that refuses to recognise it. Furthermore, the Commission’s new approach may further weaken the EU’s influence over Turkish reforms – already much diminished because of the drift in the membership talks. The Commission has added a ‘rule of law dialogue’ to its agenda that could address such problems as the 64 journalists that currently sit in Turkish jails. But, as one EU diplomat explains, the dialogue will be conducted in a “non-confrontational manner” to fuel a new spirit of partnership between Turkey and the EU. However, the EU’s critical but wellmeaning voice is much needed: there is a risk that recent PKK atrocities will push the government back to a ‘force only’ solution to the Kurdish issue, perhaps undoing the progress that it has made on minority rights since 2002. There is also a risk that Erdogan will use the negotiations on a new constitution, which started in November 2011, to create a highly centralised presidential system (with himself as the first occupant of a much-strengthened executive) rather than cementing human rights and individual freedoms. The EU is right to add elements of partnership to its relationship with Turkey. But it must also be prepared to drive this agenda forcefully so that it generates positive momentum. The political blockages that are paralysing membership talks must not be allowed to frustrate the new agenda. Moreover, the EU must make it clear to Turkey that firm and critical dialogue, including about democracy and human rights, is part of any genuine partnership.
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Katinka Barysch is deputy director of the CER.
★ The ECB must stand behind the euro Simon Tilford
★ Is Turkey our partner now? Katinka Barysch
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Monnet loses to de Gaulle by Charles Grant
T Issue 81 ★ December 2011 / January 2012
Three views on Russian modernisation and the rule of law Christopher Granville, Philip Hanson and Alena Ledeneva
In this issue
Is Turkey our partner now?
CER 14 Great College Street London, SW1P 3RX www.cer.org.uk info@cer.org.uk T +44 20 7233 1199 F +44 20 7233 1117
HE EURO CRISIS IS transforming the balance of power in Europe. Germany is emerging, for the first time in the EU’s history, as the unquestioned leader. France is having to adjust to a subordinate role. The euro countries are likely to integrate more closely, leading to a two-speed Europe. Britain is moving to the margins. One other key shift has attracted less attention but is just as significant: the European Commission is becoming weaker vis-à-vis the member-states. In the 1950s and 1960s, two great Frenchmen, Jean Monnet and Charles de Gaulle, had rival visions for Europe. Jean Monnet understood that national governments, left to their own devices, would never agree to significant steps of political or economic integration. He wanted effective institutions to cajole them and the rule of law to constrain them. The Commission incarnates Monnet’s philosophy and can take much of the credit for achievements such as the single market and the enlargement of the Union. But de Gaulle wanted a Europe des Patries, with national governments – and especially those from big countries – calling the shots. On returning to power in 1958 he almost scrapped the justcreated European Economic Community, only keeping it in the hope that it could act as a counterweight to the US. But he blocked the extension of majority voting and treated the Commission with disdain. The EU has always been a compromise between supranationalism – represented by the EU’s Commission, Court of Justice and Parliament – and intergovernmentalism. The Commission’s influence peaked when Jacques Delors was its president, from 1985 to 1995: the EU extended majority voting and laid plans for the euro. But the larger member-
states have been trying to shackle the Commission ever since. Both the financial crisis and the euro crisis have accelerated the Commission’s decline. The Commission has failed to lead Europe’s response to these problems, though the big member-states have not wanted it to lead. They provide the money for eurozone bail-outs and will not let the Commission tell them what to do. Public opinion has become more nationalist in much of the Union, weakening those – like the Commission – who favour European solutions. THE KEY DECISIONS ON THE EURO crisis have been taken by Merkel and Sarkozy – with Merkel primus inter pares – and then endorsed by other leaders. The Commission has been sidelined in the euro bail-out mechanisms, which are inter-governmental (though it does play an important role in some of the new eurozone governance procedures). The German insistence on treaty change could further weaken the Commission. The new treaty may cover only eurozone members, or current members and others that plan to join the euro, in which case it will establish new institutions. But even if the treaty is for all 27 member-states, France and Germany seem determined for the eurozone to have its own institutions. Either way, the Commission’s role in the management of the eurozone seems likely to be fairly modest. France and Germany make no secret of wanting less Monnet and more de Gaulle. In November 2010, Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Bruges speech criticised the ‘community method’ (which gives the Commission and Parliament a key role in decision-making), praising instead what she called the ‘Union method’, with leaders in the European Council setting the agenda. Merkel’s CDU recently adopted a programme calling for the
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