Turkey: Member or privileged partner?

Résumé du document

Turkey, with its 72 million inhabitants, became a layman state since Atatürk (Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was a Turkish army officer, revolutionary statesman, writer, and founder of the Republic of Turkey) and tried to follow the EU's vision of human rights, culture and economy.

Since 1960s, European states have promised that Turkey will enter the EU and negotiations started. Turkey since 2002 is governed by the AKP and in 2005 Angela Merkel, the German Vice chancellor proposed a “privileged partnership” with the Turkish country.

The debate can be summed up by this question:
Could a so-called “privileged partnership” be a substitute for full membership or is not it appropriated to the current Turkish situation?

The idea of “privileged partnership” was developed by Angela Merkel in 2005 and then supported by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, a former French president and Nicolas Sarkozy. The EU and Turkey are linked with a long history of friendly relations, and it is necessary for both countries to develop this close relationship, for security and geo-strategic reasons. But, this close partnership should not overtax the EU's economic capacities, which some argue will be the case when inducted completely into the EU.

Extraits

[...] Moreover, Turkey is not exemplary on the question of human rights and democracy. For example, the role of the army, the second biggest in the world, is too pregnant in the political decisions of this country. The problem of torture is also embarrassing for the EU which can't tolerate such practices in its own territory. A group of States against corruption, working for the Council of Europe has pointed out in the study from March 2010 that Turkey is not really transparent in the financing of the political parties and that corruption is widespread in this country. [...]

[...] To establish this privileged partnership, they have to go through different stages. Turkey and the EU have to cooperate through the institutions. They have to improve them and try to expand them or create new structures. Secondly, the EU and Turkey should have the unlimited exchange of goods. This has to be done under a free trade area. The last idea is to propose to Turkey the full membership in several fields of the EU policies. These domains would be the foreign, security and defense policies. [...]

[...] Indeed, with Turkey, the EU could be a significant factor in reconciliation with the Muslim world. The EU has planed also to integrate Kosovo, with Muslim majority. Then it will be really encouraging thanks to the secularism of Turkey. This is a sensitive principle in Turkey. This Turkish secularism is a part of their constitution and is defended by the army. This is the only case in Europe with France. Last year, the AKP has been punished on the pretext that it hindered this principle of secularism; to that extent it shows the ability to respect some principles. [...]

[...] To that extent, Turkey is in Europe and is already a privileged partner of the EU. We can also deal with the success of the reforms begun for the EU accession. The great reforms of 2000-2005 showed a sincere cooperation of Turkey for accession to the EU. It concerns issues like the human rights, the Kurdish question, the resolution of the Cyprus question, the limitation of the role of the Turkish army. The goal of EU membership is a vital dynamic which Turkey needs in its transformation process. [...]

[...] Even if we can notice important progresses, the country has many problems concerning the economy. In 2000, there was a big crisis in the Turkish economy, and we can wonder if it can happen again. The social inequalities are higher than in many European states, and the problem of corruption is still not resolved. Another fear is the possible massive immigration in Western Europe of Turkish people and especially the poor ones. The social model of France costs already too much and having many new poor people could collapse the social system in a long term. [...]