Turkey, other EU rejects have palatable Plan B
Chicago Sun Times
May 31, 2005
BY JOHN O'SULLIVAN
However the French had voted in Sunday's referendum on the European constitution, the result would have been bad for Turkey. The Euro-Constitution was designed, among other purposes, for an enlarged European Union that would include Turkey. If the French had voted "yes," the political elites would have interpreted the victory as occurring despite the unpopular prospect of Turkish entry. Having voted "no," the defeat is seen as a result of it.
Turkish EU membership would immediately admit Turkish goods into a France already worried about low-wage competition from Poles, Hungarians and Czechs. It would eventually allow "free movement of labor" -- i.e. open-door immigration -- from a Turkey whose population is now 70 million and growing rapidly. And their arrival would raise the already heavy costs of France's generous welfare state.
In addition, the French have some specific fears about Turkey. After a few years it would be the largest state in the EU -- threatening the Franco-German dominance that has until recently determined EU policy. It would, moreover, be a Muslim country in a continent that is increasingly unsure of its own civilizational identity -- is it Christian? secular? enlightened? some new post-Christian, post-enlightenment entity? -- and so increasingly unable to assimilate newcomers in the self-confident manner of the Americans. And Turkey's admission would bring the EU's borders into the Middle East next to Iran, Syria and Iraq. All in all, French voters and politicians feared that Turkish entry would both weaken the EU internally by importing unassimilable ethno-religious minorities and externally by giving it porous borders alongside unstable countries with large populations.
Since the Turks have been seeking entry -- and getting half-promises of it -- from the Europeans since the early 1960s, rejection is likely to create a series of international crises. In Turkey the reaction would be profound and bitter. The Turks would reasonably feel that they had carried out every reform requested by Brussels, significantly altering their political, social and economic life, and still have been rejected. Both the major parties -- the traditional Kemalist opposition and the new Islamic conservative government -- would be weakened since both supported the European orientation of Turkish foreign policy.
The forces likely to be strengthened by rejection are the Turkish army, extreme Turkish nationalists and Islamist fundamentalists. Since these are all radically opposed to each other -- the army being secular and pro-American, the Islamists in favor of a Turkish identity rooted in Islam and closer links with the Arab world, and the extreme nationalists, well, extremely nationalist -- there will probably be a series of crises in Ankara until a new political status quo is established. Even though the United States has strongly supported Turkish EU entry, that status quo would probably be a Turkey more hostile to America as well as to Europe.
Second, Muslims everywhere will attribute Turkey's rejection solely to European hostility to Islam -- which would be not quite right, but not wholly wrong either. That perception would in turn strengthen anti-Western forces within Islam, notably Islamist terrorism, and weaken the "apostate" governments that continue to work with the United States. Long-term effects might include a growing gulf between America and Islam and growing tensions within a Europe that has large Muslim minorities.
The third crisis is a sharpening of Europe's identity crisis. Turkey's rejection suggests that there are geographical and cultural limits to the EU -- without establishing what they are. Should Ukraine be eligible for membership? Or Russia? Or Muslim Bosnia? Or Morocco? If so, on what grounds?
All three crises are extremely dangerous. Yet most European and Turkish politicians are sleepwalking into them behind the banner "There is no Plan B" -- Plan A being Turkey's EU admission. And Washington echoes the same slogan because it strongly supports the Turkish application.
In reality there is always a Plan B, even if the politicians avoid considering it until Plan A has collapsed. Under this particular Plan B, the United States would rescue Turkey and the EU from their joint crises while also advancing U.S. interests in transatlantic integration.
It would work as follows:
First, the EU and the United States (together with its partners in NAFTA) would merge their markets to form TAFTA -- or a transatlantic free trade area.
Second, they would invite all the existing European countries not in the EU, including Turkey, Norway and Switzerland, to join this enlarged TAFTA. (Ukraine, Russia and Latin American countries outside NATFA would be eligible to join once they met criteria similar to those required for EU entry.)
Third, this TAFTA would establish joint procedures for harmonizing existing and new regulations between NAFTA, the EU and non-EU states,.
Fourth, free movement of labor would not be a provision in TAFTA, but there would be preferential immigration rules between members.
Laid out in this way, such a Plan B inevitably sounds utopian. Many of its individual features, however, have been widely discussed for years. Indeed, a full-scale EU-U.S. free trade area almost came about a decade ago.
At the time it was vetoed by the French. But Europeans might now see the value of a program for economic integration that does not involve free immigration -- but that would offer Turkey a solid substitute for EU membership, mollify the Islamic world, and build an long-term economic bridge to Russia, North Africa, the Middle East and Latin America.
And in their currently shaken state, even the French might be prepared to accept American leadership out of the crisis -- so, Condi, act quickly."
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