ISTANBUL
Turkey’s long journey of Europeanization has been full of twists and turns. Yet, its candidacy has never been less credible than it is today.
Despite early positivity, the process stalled in 2008 mainly due to the Cyprus issue. Along the way, only one of the opened 13 EU-membership chapters have been closed and those remaining blocked by individual member states.
Although the EU Commission proposed a positive agenda for Turkey’s accession process in 2011, the process soon reached a standstill due to enlargement and crisis fatigue in European countries.
In 2015, the European Council proposed a revitalization of Turkey’s accession process by opening a new chapter in the wake of increasing migrations flows.
However, in 2016 the European Parliament wanted a temporary freeze on EU accession talks in the wake of what it described as “disproportionate repressive measures” amid Turkey’s state of emergency.
The expanding rift between Turkey and individual European countries over pro-government rallies, Dutch and Ankara’s Nazism criticisms has triggered another round of self-defeating entanglement in Turkey-EU relations.
In addition to the weakening of the EU’s instrumental significance for Turkey, the European ideal has deteriorated over the last few years as European countries plunged into xenophobia, Islamophobia and anti-immigration sentiments, all of which somehow are associated with Turkey and discussed with Turkish accession to the bloc.
Moreover, there has been a failure by some EU countries to uphold European values following crises ranging from the Arab Spring to the migration crisis.
Domestically, Europe’s weak and ambiguous response the July 15, failed coup attempt was disturbing in the eyes of Turkish policy makers.
Last but not least, due to domestic power struggles and political uncertainties, Turkey’s reform agenda stalled while at the same time the EU as an institution has entered a process of deinstitutionalization.
Facing multiple threats stemming from terrorist organizations, the failed coup attempt, an ongoing war in Syria, economic and political difficulties, several elections in a short period, further democratization and political reforms have diminished as priority agendas in Turkish domestic politics.
The EU's ‘Other’: Turkey or Ultra-nationalism?
The present dilemma in EU-Turkish relations is not the result of one unknown factor but rather a complex puzzle directly related to both the domestic transformation of the EU itself and its longstanding perception of Turkey.
First, European foreign policy perception has historically placed Turkey as the “other” in its backyard.
Although the public visibility of this stance was largely covered by the positive relations of the late 90s and early 2000s, a re-promoting of EU values by distancing Turkey has again become a function of some EU leaders’ discourse in the last decade.
Put broadly, the global and regional crises happening around the world affected Turkey-EU relations adversely and laid the groundwork for the EU to establish a new framework for its construction of Turkey as the political "other".
However, the other piece to this “otherness” puzzle is the rapid progress towards an irreversible phase of the rise of European ultra-nationalism.
What is striking here is that the increasing rise of ultra-nationalist parties in Europe (the National Front in France, the Alternative for Germany, the Freedom Party in the Netherlands) prevents the EU from acting as a coherent actor, as is seen in the case of Brexit, leaving multiple EU actors on the stage.
Countries engaging in historic institutional relations with the EU now must deal with different actors representing the various domestic shifts towards ultra-nationalist discourses.
This ultra-nationalist factor in EU-Turkey relations shifts the sense of otherness from purely an inter-governmental to an inter-societal level between EU and Turkish societies.
What remains of the progressive relation between the EU and Turkey is a loose deinstitutionalized network serving mainly against the interest of both parties.
Rationalizing EU-Turkey Relations: A Remote Possibility?
The recent crisis between Europe and Turkey goes beyond European anti-Justice and Development (AK) Party sentiments. It manifests in a broader trend involving both the societal and governmental levels and has moved the crisis away from a solely political one.
In fact, the current EU-Turkey relations are far from being sustainable in their actual form. It is likely that a decentering of Turkey-EU relations by opposition to Turkish membership is more functional and operational for some European capitals on the verge of elections.
What is different today from the past is the fact that today’s EU is not as same as the EU of the early 2000s.
However, this “change” in Europe is unlikely to create a positive impact in terms of maintaining the EU’s unity and defending its democratic credentials.
The refugee crisis and the recent rise of ultra-nationalist voices in many European governments have exposed the EU’s capacity and ability to adapt itself to shifting domestic, regional and global conditions and has shown its failures in responding to the emerging crises at its door as a unique actor.
The current deadlock in EU-Turkey relations emanating from the refugee deal and the recent Dutch crisis, as well as the responses of the EU Commission and some EU members to this diplomatic prove that EU-Turkey relations have entered a stage of deinstitutionalization and subjectivity.
It seems likely that EU leaders still need time to identify the bloc’s real Trojan not as Turkey, but rather the intolerance of the EU itself under the influence of expanding ultra-nationalism.
Last but not the least, if Turkey and the EU can manage to recondition their relations on a cooperative basis, it could serve the interests of both the parties, not only in terms of solving regional and global crises but also reviving fading internationalism.
It is an urgent necessity for Turkey and the EU to leave behind these problems and to look for further possibilities to find rational common ground for their own sakes.
*Views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Anadolu Agency's editorial policy.
