News & Commentary
Last Updated: January 15. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 15. 2009 5:30AM GMT
ISTANBUL // Stung by criticism at home and abroad for letting Turkey’s
EU bid languish, the government in Ankara has signalled its
willingness to revitalise its reform agenda by appointing Turkey’s
first minister for EU affairs. But the big question is: Will the new
man be able to usher in an era of democratic change?
Egemen Bagis, one of the most influential foreign policy advisers to
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, took over as the new top
negotiator in Turkey’s membership talks with the European Union last
weekend. Up to now, the EU negotiations were part of the portfolio of
Ali Babacan, the foreign minister. Mr Bagis, who is only 38 years old,
was given the title of a state minister and a seat in the cabinet,
thus, in effect, becoming Turkey’s first EU minister.
“No one should be in any doubt that we will work with all our strength
to realise these [EU] reforms with a philosophy of `don’t stop, keep
going’,” Mr Bagis said at a ceremony marking the handover of the post
of EU negotiator from Mr Babacan. EU representatives welcomed Mr
Bagis’s appointment. The ambassador of the Czech Republic in Ankara,
Eva Filipi, whose country currently holds the rotating EU presidency,
said the move was “very positive” for Turkey and the EU, according to
the Anatolian news agency.
Critics within Turkey and in the EU have accused Mr Erdogan’s
government of “reform fatigue”. Membership negotiations that started
in late 2005 have proceeded slowly, with only ten out of 33
negotiation chapters having been addressed so far. Creating a separate
EU ministry and appointing a heavy-hitter such as Mr Bagis to lead it
is a signal that the government wants to speed things up, observers say.
The appointment follows several other symbolic steps taken by the
government recently. The beginning of the year saw the start of
Turkey’s first state-run television channel broadcasting in Kurdish,
and the government also promised to widen rights of the Alevis, a
liberal Muslim minority. In another sign of a renewed EU vigour, Mr
Erdogan, accompanied by Mr Bagis, will visit the European Union
headquarters in Brussels for talks with Jose Manuel Barroso, the EU
commission president, and other top officials on Sunday and Monday,
the first such trip for the prime minister in four years, according to
Turkish press reports. The visit will be Mr Bagis’s first chance to
meet EU officials face to face after taking over his new post.
“2009 will be a year that will see new action for Europe,” said Beril
Dedeoglu, a political scientist at Istanbul’s Galatasaray University.
She said the fact that Abdullah Gul, the president, signed a new
reform agenda on New Year’s Eve also pointed towards fresh efforts for
change.
The so-called third National Programme that Mr Gul put into force with
his signature calls for hundreds of laws and regulations to be changed
over the next four years in order to bring Turkey closer to the EU.
The package includes judicial reforms, measures to protect free speech
and to strengthen civilian oversight over the military as well as
commitments to secure Turkey’s market economy and to fight corruption.
As he works through the National Programme as EU minister, much will
depend on how much political backing Mr Bagis receives from Mr
Erdogan, Hasan Cemal, a columnist, wrote in the Milliyet daily.
“If prime minister Erdogan does not show his political support without
leaving any room for doubt, Egemen Bagis will remain in a vacuum in
Ankara as well as in Brussels.”
Newspapers reported that two of the reasons Mr Bagis, who has been
known more as an expert on Turkish-US relations than as an EU buff,
was picked as EU minister were his closeness to Mr Erdogan and the
good reputation he enjoys within Turkey’s business community, which
forms a powerful pro-European lobby group in the country.
Prof Dedeoglu said that substantive action on the EU front was not
expected before local elections scheduled for March 29, but that the
government would probably act shortly afterwards. Renewed reforms
would strengthen the hand of Turkey’s supporters within the EU, among
them Sweden, the United Kingdom and Spain, Prof Dedeoglu said. “Some
reforms will come about during the Swedish EU presidency” in the
second half of the year.
Domestically, Prof Dedeoglu said Mr Erdogan had understood that Turkey
did not benefit from the standstill on the reform path and that his
governing Justice and Development Party, or AKP, could benefit at the
next general elections in two to three years if it started a new
reform process now.
But not everyone is convinced. Umit Ozdag, head of the Institute for
Turkey in the 21st Century, a conservative think tank in Ankara, said
the appointment of Mr Bagis and such other recent moves as the
establishment of the Kurdish television station had more to do with
the inner workings of the AKP and the upcoming local elections than
with the EU bid.
“Five years ago, the EU was a domestic policy issue in Turkey,” Prof
Ozdag said, adding that there was widespread enthusiasm for the EU
project among Turks at that time. “Now, people don’t believe in the EU
anymore.”
Polls show that public support for EU membership slipped dramatically
in Turkey in recent years. Prof Ozdag and other blame “double
standards” of the EU for the erosion of support. Some EU countries
like France have said openly that they oppose Turkish membership, even
though membership talks are proceeding.
Prof Ozdag said chances for Turkey to become a full EU member one day
are slim. “No one knows how it will end,” he said about the EU
process. At some point, “one of the sides will say: `Ok, that’s enough’.”
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