Turkey’s highly motivated foreign policy with new style and content in recent years generated a new debate in Europe whether Turkey’s foreign policy orientation is shifting in focus from the west to the east and south. Although it has been on the agenda of western media outlets since the ruling AK Party’s coming to power in 2002, nowadays Turkey’s international role seems to be taken more seriously than ever before in European capitals as Europe is struggling to recover from its own crises. Western media, scholars, academia and policy makers now give more thoughts on Turkey for puzzling out its new foreign policy priorities. There are many reasons for Europe’s growing concern about and interest in Turkey.
To start with, while Turkey’s main orientation since the last days of the Ottoman Empire has always been with the western civilization defined as Europe, now its foreign policy is gradually becoming truly multi-dimensional. Economically, politically and culturally Turkey has developed closer ties with non-western world in the last decade. To give a few examples, although Turkey is a NATO member country it holds military drilling with different countries including China. Commercially, last year Russia replaced Germany as the number one trade partner of Turkey. Arab spring opens up new opportunities for Turkey for reinventing its neighboring region, although admittedly with some important risks. While Turkey’s trade with EU countries since 1999 is in decline in relative terms, the share of neighboring countries are on steadily rising. Thus there are many signs that Turkey is successfully establishing itself as a new axis in its closer environment, or stating in Davutoglu’s terminology, while it was once a peripheral state of Europe now emerging as a central power in its region.
EU Rediscovers Turkey’s Strategic Value
It took a decade for the western world and Europe to recognize that in fact Turkey has the capacity, political will and economic opportunities to redefine its strategic identity and international role. While acknowledgment of Turkey by EU as a new political actor can be seen a good sign for Turkey, some policy makers and scholars in EU countries however tend to interpret Turkey’s rapprochement with non-western world, especially with the Islamic countries, as Turkey’s rejection of the west. Here where the debate on whether Turkey was lost by the west starts. The discussion is found to be both attractive and sometimes disconcerting for EU political elites. This is because as Turkey is doing well economically and acting more independently in international affairs, many EU countries in Euro zone are suffering from one of the worst financial crises ever before in the global economy. Moreover, EU political elites for the first time since 1950s seem to be loosing faith in the EU project itself as some southern EU countries almost came to a total collapse. For the time being, there seems to be no easy answer for EU crisis yet, and this reality gives way to growing pessimism in many EU countries, which creates a fertile ground for European nationalism in economy and politics. In addition, not only EU itself but also the hegemony of the West that dominated the world in the last four centuries in general seems to be in decline as new actors such as China and India gaining grounds and competing for more power and wealth. Thus economic crises and the lost in status in world affairs make the EU political elites more jealous and intolerant toward politically more aggressive and economically fast growing countries such as Turkey.
It can be argued that if the west in general and EU in specific are to continue to lead the world as they used to be, one of their great chances is to get Turkey into EU as soon as possible. Since Turkey is both a democratic country and runs a free market economy which are in essence shared by the west, a young and dynamic Turkey will bring new energy to the tired economies of EU. Those whose eyes are not blinded with nationalistic feelings toward the world and Turkey yet, who do well understand the value of Turkey for the future of EU and thus now their call for Turkey’s speedy accession to EU find more listeners than ever before. It is this section of Europe that nowadays maintains the lively debate whether EU has lost Turkey forever.
Turkey does not give up their hopes yet
Last week, I participated in a two-day seminar organized by German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP) in Berlin that focused on the EU enlargement toward western Balkans and Turkey. One of the main topics was of course Turkey, and thus together with other participants we held fruitful discussions over Turkey’s prospective EU membership. I should summarize, that our European friends are closely following Turkey’s recent foreign policy initiatives and economic growth with a mixed feeling of both admiration and anxiety. However, as they have learned more about Turkey they seem to be more confused. On the one hand, they are talking about some kind of “Turkish miracle” in economy, but find it quite confusing why Turkey is in good relations with Iran while having trouble with Israel, Europe’s beloved cousin in the region. On the other hand, we as Turks really fail to understand their perception of Turkey and their unjust treatment of Turkey’s accession process. Some of them really think and hope that Turkey might accept “partial integration” with Europe, which is another way of saying of “privileged membership” as an alternative to full membership. Many of the participants from Germany tend to think that EU support in Turkey is weakening and Turkish political elites are ready now to give up their EU dreams, since EU does not any more seems to fit Turkey’s newly designed multi-dimensional foreign policy. All in all that means for them that Turkey has already been lost by the west and Turkish people are no longer willing to endure waiting at the door of the EU, and therefore we must discuss to find alternative formulas to work together with Turkey and EU. Is that the case? Is Turkey really a lost case for Europe? How about Turkey? Do the Turkish people really not support EU project anymore?
To say that Turkey has totally lost its interest in and hope for EU accession is not a real picture of today’s Turkey. Public opinion polls repeatedly and consistently reveal that at least more than half of the Turkish population still supports EU membership. Yes the support to the EU today is not as high as it was in 2004 because of public frustration with the deadlock in negotiation process that was halted by political problems such as Cyprus issue and France’s unfair attitude toward Turkey during Sarkozy government. However, despite Turkey’s growing ties with non-western countries including such authoritarian regimes as Russia, Iran and China and its increasing role in Muslim Middle East, the EU still stays the most concrete modernization and democratization project for Turkey. If there is a slightest chance for Turkey to join EU (and as long as the EU remains as it is today), Turkey will never give up its hope for becoming an equal partner of EU countries.
Having saying that, however, if EU itself disintegrates for some reason or another, Turkey as a growing economy (which is already 6th largest in Europe and 16th largest in the world) will likely to emerge as a power center in the region. As Turkish economic growth is widely based on export markets, inevitable Turkey will have to find or create new formulas for integrating with its neighborhood. In the lights of tectonic changes in the Arab Middle East, Turkish model is already attracting increasing attention for emulation. Even in such a scenario, with its democratic regime and flourishing free market economy Turkey will most likely to be a sincere promoter of freedom, democracy and human rights in the region for countries from Balkans to Arab peninsula, from Caucasus to North Africa.