turkey's chief eu negotiator at ceu-cens

On March 21st, 2007, CEU's Center for EU Enlargement Studies together with the Turkish Embassy in Budapest hosted Turkish Chief EU Negotiator, Ali Babacan who delivered a public lecture entitled "Turkey and the EU: Negotiations, Relations and Challenges Ahead.” In his talk, Babacan pointed to the remarkable reforms that have been carried out in Turkey in the last few years, and that resulted in dynamic economic performance and the opening of negotiations with the EU. Babacan stressed that Turkey is an anchor of stability and security in the region and therefore major risks and challenges facing the EU today and tomorrow can best be tackled with the engagement of Turkey.

This engagement represents significant added value to EU policies ranging from security and defense policies to energy policy. He pointed out the great contributions of Turkey to costs of defense as well as its intentions for cooperation on establishing alternative routes for gas and energy. The areas of common action are constantly expanding based on such common interests. Most importantly, however, Turkey 's EU accession process and ultimate membership will contribute to the spreading of the values represented by the EU and will serve as an example for the applicability of these values globally. The two million Turkish inhabitants living as EU citizens in member states and sharing these values provide hope for the co-existence of various cultures in the future. The EU already proved to be a diverse entity capable of uniting several countries and has the potential to share its values with the rest of the world. Therefore, Turkey 's successful adaptation of these values and criteria will set an example and pave the way toward the stability of the whole region.

Babacan went on to assess the current state of the negotiation process, including the suspension of eight chapters due to the Cyprus problem and its use as a pretext against Turkish accession. He underlined the difficulty of acquiring consensus from all 27 EU member states in the opening and closing of negotiation chapters. Realizing the difficulty of a consensus with so many actors, Babacan affirmed the commitment of Turkey to carry out its reform program regardless of the actual state of negotiations. Turkey , he emphasized, is applying a self-imposed reform program for the period of 2007-2013, with the aim of working towards full EU membership. The country is very much in need of further reforms that serve the best interests of Turkey by accelerating convergence, and advancing the welfare of its citizens. The Chief Negotiator underlined that by committing itself to the reform process, Turkey has nothing to lose, but a lot to gain, and is therefore insistent on carrying it out for its own good. The roadmap of the Turkish government outlining the gradual aligning with the acquis will be made public in April 2007.

A “soft revolution” has been underway in Turkey throughout the last decade, which resulted in great progress in fundamental rights and the openness of the country. Precisely the success of these reforms calls for the continuation of the process and explains the dedication of the government to carry on with them regardless of the state of official EU negotiations. Turkey, Babacan emphasized, is aware of the open-ended nature of the negotiation process but set full membership as the final objective anyway, because the course of moving toward that final objective itself is beneficial for both Turkey and the EU and has global consequences as well. However, ultimately membership will be decided by European citizens, and therefore public support needs to be raised, by winning the hearts and minds of EU citizens, and by explaining Turkish citizens the benefits of joining the integration. Achieving this goal is one of the greatest tasks facing Turkey in the immediate future.

During the discussion session of the event, some of the most sensitive issues concerning Turkey and its EU integration were tackled. Asked to comment on the growing nationalistic sentiments in Turkey , Babacan pointed out that this tendency of protectionism and nationalism is not only characteristic of Turkey , but some EU member states as well. He pointed to a positive interpretation of the tendency, citing that a decade before, a lot of Turkish people wanted to leave the country and had no positive feelings toward it.

Regarding the controversial issue of the Armenian genocide and what its should be called, the Chief Negotiator stressed Turkey's willingness to cooperate with Armenian officials and historians to study the issue and set up a committee composed of experts from both sides as well as international organizations.

Questioned on the potential domestic effects of the slowing down of the negotiation process, he admitted that public support for EU membership has fallen dramatically in Turkey , by approximately 20% in the last two years. However, he emphasized that this negative trend is not a result of the reform processes and is not intended to halt that process. Rather, the falling popularity of the EU results from the hostile, anti-Turkish mood that can be observed in some member states currently.

Asked about the final borders of Europe topic, he underlined that as long as there are mutual benefits to the extension of the integration, enlargement should not be ruled out. At the same time, a decision on every new country should be made on a case-by-case basis. Further questions were asked about the parliamentary representation of the Kurdish minority as well as Turkey 's penal code.

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