A Letter to the FT: Sarkozy’s blithe inconsistency over Turkey puts EU credibility at risk
J. Ignacio Torrelbanca, Hakan Altinay and others
September 6, 2007
Sir, Your editorial praising Nicolas Sarkozy’s vision for the European Union’s global role and his “deft” diplomatic touch (“More bang for Europe’s buck”, August 30) makes curious reading for those concerned with the EU’s relationship with Turkey. President Sarkozy has repeatedly opposed the EU’s agreed foreign policy towards its key geostrategic neighbour – that of negotiating full EU membership. In his speech on EU foreign policy that prompted your editorial, he identifies the top global challenge as preventing confrontation between Islam and the west. Blithely inconsistent, he then goes on to restate his opposition to Turkey’s membership of the EU.
He adds that he will not block the opening of new negotiating chapters with Turkey as long as the issues involved could equally lead to a privileged partnership as to membership. In other words, France will continue to make a mockery of the EU’s membership talks with Turkey by blocking any chapters it considers involve “membership”, as it did with the euro chapter this June. In fact, as French diplomats must know, all of the 35 negotiating chapters on the table concern EU membership. For President Sarkozy to state that some are membership-related and some not is a disingenuous piece of political chicanery. In the face of this French reneging on the EU’s commitment to full membership, the silence from other European leaders, or indeed from previous supporters of Turkey’s EU membership such as the FT, is deafening.
Yet the EU’s framework for its negotiations with Turkey, agreed unanimously by all member states on October 3 2005, is categorical: “The shared objective of the negotiation is accession.” The EU also recognised Turkey’s eligibility for membership in 1989 (rejecting Turkey’s readiness for talks but accepting it was a European country), in 1999 (recognising its candidate status), and in 2004 (agreeing to open membership talks).
If President Sarkozy’s drip-drip denial of this EU foreign policy stance is allowed to stand, then bold speeches by him or other European leaders about the EU’s new role in the world will be worthless.
The only way to end the deepening erosion in the EU’s foreign policy credibility is for other heads of state and European leaders to clearly restate their commitment to Turkey’s membership.
If anyone doubts what is at stake, a quick review of the press in the Middle East and the rest of the world shows this issue is a central prism through which EU credibility is judged. Even the president of an important member state does not have the prerogative to raze the EU’s credibility at will. It is up to the other heads of state to make sure this does not happen.
Hakan Altinay,
Executive Director, Open Society Institute, Istanbul
Jean-François Bayart,
Former Director, Centre d’Études et de Recherches Internationales, and Chairman, Fonds d’Analyse des Sociétés Politiques, Paris
Kryzstof Bobinski,
Director, Unia & Polska Foundation, Warsaw
Kirsty Hughes,
Associate Fellow, European Institute, London School of Economics, London
David Kral,
Director, Europeum, Prague
Nathalie Tocci,
Senior Fellow, Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome
José-Ignacio Torreblanca,
Senior Fellow, Elcano Institute for International Relations, Madrid
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
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dead right
Comment by Eamonn McDonagh — September 7, 2007 @ 8:59 pm