7 October 2004Stephen Castle and Pelin Turgut
President Kennedy was still alive, the cold war was at its height and Harold Macmillan was in Downing Street when Turkey was first told that it could hope one day to be accepted as part of Europe. Forty-one years later, there was quiet satisfaction though no jubilation in Ankara at yesterday's cautious finding in Brussels that this country of 71 million has finally met the political criteria for joining the club. It will still be 10 or more years before Turkey can become a member. But no country which has started the process of EU accession has yet failed to be accepted. No other candidate country, though, has been so large and so poor relative to the existing members, or overwhelmingly Muslim.
The European commission was acutely aware of these sensitivities when it announced that the government of Recep Tayyip Erdogan had made the grade. It made no recommendation as to when negotiations should begin: that is up to the EU's 25 heads of government, who have the final, crucial word at their December summit - another date with destiny in this long-running saga. Romano Prodi and colleagues were right to say yes: anything else would have risked a damaging backlash. But they were right, too, to signal that backsliding on human rights would mean a suspension of talks - an explicit qualification that dampened an otherwise enthusiastic reaction from Istanbul, on the geographic bridge between Europe and Asia, to Diyarbakir in the remote south-east.
Mr Erdogan's conservative government has achieved a huge amount: banning torture, allowing Kurdish language broadcasts and weakening the grip of the military. Economic instability has given way to robust growth. Some new laws are being implemented too slowly, though the prospect of EU membership is likely to continue to have the same powerful magnetic effect as it has had so far. The commission underlined concern about an influx of Turkish workers into other EU countries, though since this did not happen with previous enlargements, it is wrong to contemplate permanent curbs for Turks. Caution from Brussels reflects hostility in France, the Netherlands and Austria, where voters are not convinced of the need to embrace this secular Muslim democracy. The answer is that religion and culture are private matters as long as European values and laws are respected, just as they must be by Romania and Bulgaria, now formally expected to join in 2007. Turkey has quite a way to go yet on its journey to Europe. But this is a welcome, highly significant and probably irreversible step.
http://www.guardian.co.uk./print/0,3858,5033305-111247,00.html
