Scenario N°3 – EU-Turkey’s joint move to build a common regional future

If we cannot say ‘yes’ or ‘no’, then the only way out is to change the question! First of all, let’s be clear, this option is not just a European one: many Turks do not see accession to the European Union as their country’s best future. But those Turks most of the time end up in jail because these opinions have not been ‘politically correct’ for the past 40 years.

Second, let’s keep in mind that if Turkey is a unique country, the question of Turkish membership is not unique. Turkey is part of a group of countries which geographical situation will generate the same kind of question to the European Union in the coming two decades: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Caucasus countries, Israel, Lebanon, Palestine, North African countries. Whatever answer we will give to Turkey will serve as a precedent for the other ones. Therefore the EU should be extremely aware of two aspects of this answer:

Last, nobody knows what the EU or Turkey will be in more than a generation. So let imagine answers that keep the long-term-future open (revision-clause 10 or 15 years from now), but not at the cost of generating major short and medium terms disasters.

Therefore the only available option if one wants to avoid chaos either in the EU, or in Turkey, is to build up a comprehensive EU-Neighbourhood Partnership, offering an extensive package of economic, cultural, scientific, security cooperation measures, to be proposed by the end of 2004 to Turkey (and when possible to other neighbours), including the revival and enlargement of the Council of Europe’s tasks and responsibilities (common values, such as the Copenhagen criteria, should be at the core of this EU-Neighbourhood Partnership policy). The choice has to be made extremely clear: either immediately the Neighbourhood Partnership option with a revision of the rationale to EU/Turkey relations planned for 2015; or nothing at all but business as usual (accession being no option).

The Commission’s responsibility will be central

Not only do I think that this third option is the only sustainable one, but it is the only one to addresses the complex challenge of EU relations with its neighbours. In complex systems the good solution is always the solution solving at once different problems; the wrong ones only solve one problem at a time (and generate therefore new problems elsewhere in the system).

The Commission’s responsibility is crucial on this question. We know that no EU leader today seriously wants Turkey’s accession. Therefore the assessment of Turkey’s position by the end of 2004, which will be made by the Commission and its recommendations, will either make it easier for leaders to opt for an innovative and courageous option (Nr 3), or it will trap them into one of the two obvious and dangerous alternatives (Nr 1 and Nr 2). It may be a unique occasion for the European Commission to regain, as an institution, the political clout and prestige it has lost along those past years.

The Iraq crisis has shown a new maturity in Turkey’s positioning on the world political scene. Let’s the European Union help the Turkish people find their own way towards a future they will build with us and other components of their identity and history, rather than pushing them into our own vision of the future.

Let’s have both sides answer the question put on the table today at the beginning of this XXIst century, rather than keep on trying to answer questions essentially generated by Turkey’s westernisation in the 1920s and by the Cold War in 1960s.

Whether our leaders will be up to the challenge will be know by the end of this year. If they fail, it will be a matter of months before both sides pay a heavy political tribute; and our leaders too.