Europe: the bigger, the bigoter?
Deniz Akkan*
The latest EP elections have proven an old Turkish saying right:” Where there are too many heads, there’s too much headache”. The “European Project”, or “the EU” as it has come so far, has started out as an ambitious ideal, closer to a dream than to the realities of those days, way back 50 years ago. Though the ideals seem to have marked their victory so far, the future still holds many doubts. Seen from the eastern end of the Mediterranean, beyond the Aegean, awaits gray stormy clouds over Europe.
The record low voter turn-out could be blamed on the long-waited sunny weather over the weekend, tempting the spring-sick Europeans to go out and have fun instead of feeling responsible for their own future. But how much could anyone disagree if one were to say that the deeper the Union gets, the more it alienates itself from its citizens.
Europeans seemed to be highly sensitive to the international relations and beyond-the-EU’s-borders-events (such as the war in Iraq), yet despite the position taken by their leaders, they have shown little support for their Governments, passing one message clearer than ever: local counts more than international. All that Bush-bullying didn’t help hide away the record low growing rates and the ever increasing unemployment rates of the Member States. EU citizens, much like the rest of the world, care more for their own welfare than what goes on in the world, and fear for their future when more people start loosing their jobs and the government seems to be less able to do what’s best.
Euro, yet another ambitious project brought to life, has taken its place on the long list of disappointments sketched out by the EU citizens. The arguments on the exit clause could only mean one thing: there are more than just a few people who see the EU holding a glass of water half empty. Will the Constitution help make the EU an easier boat to ride, even in stormy weathers? There’s no easy answer for that question.
As an outsider who has been long standing in front of the door, waiting to be let in, the latest European elections had a distinctive importance for Turkey. The EPP-ED, the strongest party of the newly elected EP**, is leaded by personalities such as Hans Gert Pöttering, whose bias remind us more of the middle ages rather than the 21st century. The EU is promoting itself as a successful model of compromise, of multi-culturalism, of tolerance and peace, of the rule of law and reason; yet there is a picture in front of us, which points out a crowd less tolerant, more irritated and most importantly, more inclined to underline their religious and ethnic backgrounds.
The EP is not to have a direct influence over the short-term relations between the EU and Turkey. The EP plays practically no part in the early stages of the negotiations with an accession country. It is only when all the chapters of the accession negotiations are closed that the European Parliament votes at the General Assembly to either ratify or reject the final accession process. Since no sain mind should expect the negotiations with Turkey to be completed during the next 5 years, it will be the successors of the newly elected EP members who will have the last word on Turkish accession to the EU. Therefore, building election campaigns based on arguments against Turkey, as observed during the latest EP elections, was not only misleading the public but also far away from being realistic. Despite the current distribution of seats in the EP, in case things get tough, the Liberals are most likely to play the key role by taking sides of one of the two biggest parties, the Christian Democrats and the Socialists, and that remains as a comfort for the Turkish.
Only 4 of the 30 Turkish-originate European candidates have made it to the EP. One from Holland and 3 from Germany, which is still better than none. However, they should not be regarded as the soldiers of the Trojan horse. They are Dutch and German before Turkish and should remain so.
It is not new to be scared of the dark. There are millions of people in the EU who are left in the dark about many things and it is not surprising to see them concerned and even scared about their future. They need to be reassured and enlightened about the impact of their government policies, of the enlargement, of the euro and of the potential new members on their lives. What Turkey can best do at this point, is to create awareness of the many political and economic, immediate and long-shot, positive impacts that Turkish membership can bring to the EU. The majority might be left in the dark, but there are those who enjoy the bright lights and are willing to make friends, strengthening their trust for the future. The ever-lasting dispute over whether there should be a reference to Christianity regarding the or not at the Constitution, has proven once again that Turkey believes to have friends in the EU, who still believe dreams can come true.
Istanbul, June 23rd 2004
* Deniz Akkan is a PhD student on EU Economics at Marmara University in Istanbul. She has been collaborating with Vision in several European projects. She has an MA degree on Internal Policies of the EU at Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium and a BA degree in International Relations at Galatasaray University, Istanbul (the only francophone university in Turkey). She currently works as a consultant, specialized in monitoring, analyzing and interpreting EU law and policies, providing assistance to both Turkish and foreign companies.
NOTES
**Since July 1999, the EPP-ED Group - the Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats in the European Parliament - has been the largest political group in the European Parliament. The Group unites Christian Democrat, Conservative and other mainstream centre and centre-right political forces from across the 25-member European Union.
PREVIOUS PAGE
|
