Internal Dimensions of Europeanization in Turkey and Its Impact on Foreign Affairs with EU

Longstanding EU-Turkey relations have faced many fluctuated moments. In this article, this process examined in the scope of the internal developments of Turkey in its progress of Europeanization and its results that affect Turkish foreign affairs with the EU. The first chapter of the article consists of the launching of the official candidacy and the internal political dynamics of Turkey including political parties and military factors in response to European conditionality that aims of Europeanization of Turkey by supplying and maintaining the Copenhagen Criteria in the country. The second part indicates the new practices of EU conditionality by the AKP government and clarifies the beginning of usage of Europeanization as a tool in internal politics. The last part of the article displays how the Accession negotiations began very damaged and the Europeanization process changed very fast in Turkey. According to the change of the sense of Europeanization, it draws the new political relations between EU and Turkey not on EU values but in strategic steps.

Abstract

Longstanding EU-Turkey relations have faced many fluctuated moments. In this article, this process examined in the scope of the internal developments of Turkey in its progress of Europeanization and its results that affect Turkish foreign affairs with the EU. The first chapter of the article consists of the launching of the official candidacy and the internal political dynamics of Turkey including political parties and military factors in response to European conditionality that aims of Europeanization of Turkey by supplying and maintaining the Copenhagen Criteria in the country. The second part indicates the new practices of EU conditionality by the AKP government and clarifies the beginning of usage of Europeanization as a tool in internal politics. The last part of the article displays how the Accession negotiations began very damaged and the Europeanization process changed very fast in Turkey. According to the change of the sense of Europeanization, it draws the new political relations between EU and Turkey not on EU values but in strategic steps.

Key Words: Turkey-EU Relations, Internal Dynamics, Europeanization, AKP Government, Turkish Foreign Affairs

Özet

 Uzun süredir devam eden AB-Türkiye ilişkileri pek çok dalgalanmayla karşı karşıya geldi. Bu makale, bu süreci Türkiye’nin Avrupalılaşmada ilerlemesi ve bunun AB ile Türk dış siyasetini etkileyen sonuçları kapsamında incelemiştir. Makalenin ilk kısmı resmi adaylığın başlamasından ve siyasi partiler ve ordu gibi faktörleri içeren iç dinamiklerin, ülkede Kopenhag Kriterlerini sağlayarak Türkiye’nin Avrupalılaşmasını hedefleyen AB koşulculuğuna yönelik tepkilerinden oluşmaktadır. İkinci kısım AB koşulculuğunun AKP hükümeti tarafından yeni uygulamalarını içermekte ve Avrupalılaşmanın araçsallaştırılmasını açıklığa kavuşturmaktadır. Makalenin son kısmı ise açılış müzakerelerinin nasıl hasarlı başladığını ve Türkiye’de Avrupalılaşma sürecinin nasıl hızlı değiştiğini göz önüne sermektedir.

Anahtar Kelimeler: Türkiye-AB İlişkileri, İç Dinamikler, Avrupalılaşma, AKP Hükümeti, Türk Dış İlişkileri

Introduction

Although Turkey’s political relations with Europe have begun earlier, 1959 is the year when Turkey established official relations with one of the institutions that lead to the establishment of the European Union by applying to the European Economic Community for membership. This application is eventuated with further relations with the Ankara Agreement, which draws a Customs Union and envisages a full membership to the community, signed in 1963 despite the diverse interruptions of the process such as a military coup in Turkey in the 1980s. After gradually progressing and sometimes turbulent political relations between Turkey and European Economic Community along with the following years, 1999 arrived as a year that Turkey had been accepted as a candidate country for the EU in the summit that is held in Helsinki  (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate for EU Affairs, 2020).

This article focused on the explanation of the process of Turkey’s EU candidacy progress by examining the internal dynamics in the political arena of the country since it is the area of whether Europeanization is practiced among both internal and external politics. Because the internal political decisions are determinative and practices are indicative of the level of Europeanization of Turkey, it will be most explanatory to examine the gradual changes in internal political dynamics, roles of political parties, and its impacts on the relations of both sides of EU and Turkey. Hence the changing bilateral politics among the two sides will be understood more vividly.

1.      Beginning of Europeanization from 1999 to 2002 and Its Internal Dynamics in Turkey

The coalition government of Turkey during official recognition as a candidate country for the union consisted of skeptical approaches towards the relations between the EU and Turkey from both left and right wings. Despite the existence of these sorts of skepticism that include national concerns, the reforms that will lead to triggering the accession process had been realized (Yilmaz, 2016, p. 89). These reforms include constitutional changes such as weakening the military’s position in policy, arrangements on human rights in the subjects of death penalties, gender equality as well as freedom of expression such as broadcasting in languages which allows broadcasting in the Kurdish language, a very sensitive subject during that times of Turkey. The important impactful reason behind these implementations on reforms was the commitment made in the Helsinki Summit by the EU in the matter of stating Turkey’s membership in case of the fulfillment of the required political reforms (Baç, 2005, pp. 22-24).

Hence, the year 1999 can be also considered as an important driving force that had begun for Turkey since it became a candidate country this year. That important driving force was the conditionality of the European Union. This conditionality force from the union towards Turkey between 1999 and 2004 led to many reforms possible despite the opposition or skeptic factors from various influencing actors that took place in Turkish policy such as MHP and DSP parties during the coalition of 1999-2002 or CHP party and military during the first years of AKP government from 2002 (Yilmaz, 2016, pp. 89-90). The nature of the EU conditionality has two sides consist of rewarding and punishing mechanisms. This mechanism was working in a way to improve the political practices that are deemed by the EU as part of the coherence with the Europeanization of a candidate country and eliminate the ones that contain different directions from the standards of the European Union. Thence, the EU conditionality incorporated monetary helping with the accessibility to the market and institutional assistances to accelerate the political reforms to motivate Turkey. Since the relations have been conducted directly between the government of a candidate country by EU, the importance of the willingness of government was important to supplying and sustaining the Europeanization in the country as well as the support of the conditionality of the EU (Schimmelfennig, Engert, & Knobel, 2003, pp. 496-497).

Europeanization can be defined as “the processes of construction, diffusion, and institutionalization of formal and informal rules, procedures, policy paradigms, styles, ‘ways of doing things’ and shared beliefs and norms which are first defined and consolidated in the making of the EU decisions and then incorporated into the logic of domestic discourse, identities, political structures, and public policies” (Radaelli, 2003, p. 30). This definition of Europeanization displays parallelism with the implementation of institutions that supplies democracy and human rights, maintaining a market that is able to compete, and obtaining administrative bodies to manage the responsibilities of being a member country in the union which are the standards that are determined as a requirement for full membership of the EU in the 1993 Copenhagen criteria (European Commission, 2016).

Since the practices of the EU conditionality in Turkey were creating and maintaining the standards that are mentioned in the Copenhagen criteria in a candidate country, it can be defined as sustaining of “Accession Europeanization” (Yilmaz, 2014, p. 304). Whilst the EU began to use its conditionality role more after the Helsinki Summit as creating an encouragement for Turkey to be prepared for accession negotiations that will lead to a full membership, the government in Turkey had been responsible for implementing a great number of amendments and arrangements in legislation in order to fulfill its duty to be coherent with the Copenhagen criteria as it is a required stipulation.

While the external motivation of sustaining a liberal democracy in Turkey in European standards, the EU conditionality, was encouraging, there were internal political impacts that had to be considered although not as discouraging but as concerned skeptics that can slow down the process. One of the multiple setbacks within Turkey on the process of Europeanization through concrete steps was the military factor as an obstacle to particular arrangements due to its role in politics where the military has positioned itself in Turkey. That role was mainly characterized by the former losses that took place in the region from the late Ottoman Empire to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey (Karaosmanoǧlu, 2000, p. 202). That is why the territorial integrity occurred as a highly fundamental sensitivity among the military traditions of Turkey which reflected itself as a skepticism against the arrangements related to foreign and security observations from the European side towards Turkey.

Although the military in Turkey was a supporter during former relation with Europe due to its understanding of modernization with the political ties through westernization, which Atatürk was the precursor of this understanding, 1998 came as a year that there were criticisms by military elites in Turkey on accordance with particular subjects of European conditionality of Turkey (Tocci, 2005, p. 75). Because the 1998 Regular Progress Report for Turkey indicates a couple of issues such as problematic relations with one of the member countries of the EU, Greek, about the topics on continental shelf, and the minority rights issues related with Kurdish community in the South-Eastern part of the country as well as the lack of human rights in practice explicitly mentioned along with the problem about Cyprus. But most vividly, lack of civil authority on military expressed as a weakness on Turkish democracy by citing of National Security Council and it's capacity of intervention in Turkish politics. (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate for EU Affairs, 2020).

Despite the skeptic approaches of military elites due to their doubts as mentioned and similar nationalist concerns among the coalition parties of the government, the left-wing DSP and the right-wing MHP, the arrangements had been implemented due to the reliance on membership after concrete clarification of Turkey’s possible future in the union in Helsinki Summit of 1999. Since the probability of a future for Turkey within the union has been strongly based on these new amendments, there was considerable pushing from the EU side to Turkey in the manner of realization of these new policies.

Because of the pressure from the EU, many legislations had implemented rapidly such as the constitutional reforms in 2001 in regards to freedom of expression as well as a Civil Code that aims mostly at gender equality in 2002. But the last reformist amendment in August of 2002 about removing the death penalty and allowing broadcasting in diverse languages, as well as tribunal changes according to the considerations of the violation of human rights, had brought the end of the coalition government (Baç, 2005, pp. 22-24). The increased tensions between the coalition parties in the government caused an early election which had been resulted in the AKP major winning for government and the beginning of a new era in the relations between the European Union and Turkey (Narbone & Tocci, 2007, p. 239).

2.      New Era of AKP Government - Europeanization as a Tool

The separation of coalition parties caused by disagreements on implementing of political reforms, which mostly taken courage by the 1999 Helsinki Summit that announced Turkey as a candidate country, had divided coalition government among other reasons such as the frustrating economic crisis of 2001 and enhancement on corruption and populism. Afterward, the AKP government came out as the winner solely from the early elections of 2002 (Keyman & Düzgit, 2007, pp. 69-70).

Despite it came as the winner from the 2002 election to rule the country without sharing the authority of government by obtaining 35.7 percent of the votes from the election  (Baç, 2005, p. 25), AKP had still important opposition figures that oversee its steps in the political arena of Turkey. These supervisions significantly born from the suspicious estimations over AKP’s ideology as a political party in its roots: whether AKP was carrying the same ambitions as its predecessor. After all, it was a political party that is born with a separation from the former Welfare Party which was very well-known with its Islamic ideology in politics clearly. But AKP spent efforts to demonstrate itself as not Islamic but democratic which used the EU conditionality very well to prove its democratic side and create itself a flexible scope in Turkish policy (Narbone & Tocci, 2007, p. 239). That explains why the nationalist wings such as CHP or the military itself that are the first representatives of westernization in Turkey were taking an opposition role against the reforms and becoming the new conservatives in the country. Meanwhile, AKP and Kurdish communities were supporting reforms that show a vivid picture of the usage of EU conditionality as a tool to create a political area by former suppressed groups (Tocci, 2005, p. 80).

Usage of Europeanization as a tool under the AKP government in the domestic arena was aiming to reduce the impact of the military in politics which is a strong defender of securitization and had considerable doubts on AKP. Although the AKP government was achieving this aim without touching sensitive topics such as Cyprus or Armenia (Börzel & Soyaltin-Colella, 2012, p. 16), this practice of instrumentalization of European conditionality was working fast and in numerous quantities of reforms. After a constitutional reform package was implicated right after the selection of AKP as the new government, further reforms had continued generously. These reforms, which 261 in total just in two years, include retrial of former tribunal trials from the predecessor coalition government, and gradual abolition of torture as well as death penalty under any condition. The arrangements that restrict the military’s intervention in politics by constricting the capabilities of the National Security Council and improving the conditions of the judiciary by enhancing the importance of the affectability of the duties of Turkey that holds it responsible from international agreements were also among these reforms (Baç, 2005, pp. 25-27).

Consequently, fast-going reforms of AKP with its political concern in the internal political area were applied despite 2002 Regular Report was not promising on setting accession negotiations and incorporating more criticization compare to the last year for Turkey (Usul, 2010, pp. 108-109). Because, during the Copenhagen Council meeting of 2002, the EU’s vision about Turkey on the start date of its accession process related to its coherency with Copenhagen criteria was predicted as 2004 which was a frustration for the government. Moreover, the negative reviews from EU countries to Turkey about its size or demographic conditions including the religious preferences as well as its problematic neighboring countries were another discouraging ambiguities in the foreign relations between Turkey and the EU (Tocci, 2005, p. 77).

Following Regular Progress Reports was not a harbinger of very good news as well. After the 2002 disenchantment of Turkey, the 2003 Regular Report was criticizing inadequacies rather than appreciating efficiencies despite the hardworking efforts of the government on implementing numerous reforms. Albeit promising of the starting of accession negotiations in 2004 by EU, it is also emphasized that it is necessary to see whether new reforms in Turkey were sustainable in the long run (Ulusoy, 2009, p. 376).

The lack of encouragement of Regular Progress Reports was drawing the picture of the EU’s stance on Turkey’s membership. Despite the years of 2003 and 2004 in Turkey witnessed a great number of constitutional reforms and 2005 was determined as the launching of accession negotiations between Turkey, EU Council intended to keep the accession conditionality -that can be impactful on the determination of which sorts of reforms will be implemented first- by stating that beginning of accession negotiation can be suspended for a further date (Narbone & Tocci, 2007, p. 235).

While the AKP government was challenging its opponents by pushing former limits of the concerns of the Kemalist elite in Turkey, it was needed legitimization to gain the ability to apply these mentioned arrangements. EU candidacy process was a great contribution for a solution to this need and also helping for AKP government to widen its capacity by giving an opportunity to have cooperate with non-Islamic groups such as business elites or liberal political camps. This new heterogenous pole of a liberal Islamic government was not necessarily seeing the western civilization as the only way of modernization but Turkey could also be a unique example of civilization without role modeling of western countries (Kaliber, Contextual and Contested: Reassessing Europeanization in the Case of Turkey, 2012, pp. 62-63). That indicates the fact that AKP’s approach to the commitment of Europeanization was not very strict and can change its route in the following years.

3.      Gradual De-Europeanization after 2004 and Changing Relations Between EU-Turkey

Accession negotiation for Turkey has begun very problematically related with the conflicts over Cyprus on 3 October 2005. The main disagreement that undermines the accession process was Cyprus’ not officially recognition by Turkey (Republic of Turkey Ministry of Foreign Affairs Directorate for EU Affairs, 2020). This political conflict caused 14 chapters to be blocked and the opening of 8 chapters has been based on recognition of Cyprus which let Turkey with only 16 chapters open and just one chapter is closed temporarily (www.ab.gov.tr/65_en.html, 2019).

Despite not acceptance of the Annan Plan that suggests a federal entity for Cyprus because of the rejection of the Southern Greek region, the Greek Cypriot Administration is accepted to the EU as a full member in 2004. Due to the agreements on the customs union that regulates open market for both sides, specifically according to the 2005 Additional Protocol, Turkey is proposed to open its seaports and airports to Greek Cypriot which has been closed since 1987. On the other hand, the EU began to apply an embargo to the Turkish region of Northern Cyprus since Greece and Greek Cypriot Administration have been practicing this embargo as member states of the union (Sandıklı & Akçadağ, 2011, pp. 4-6).     

The conflicts in foreign policy between the EU and Turkey related to Cyprus have led to an obvious decrease in belief in the membership and support of Europeanization among the public in Turkey. But Cyprus case was not the only demotivation for Turkey. Some states among EU member countries change their position towards Turkey’s candidacy for the union by the rising of Sarkozy in France and Merkel in Germany (Martin, 2015, pp. 113-114). Especially France under the presidency of Sarkozy had negative discourses by suggesting of giving an important role to Turkey in the Mediterranean Union rather than full membership in the EU, which was not welcomed by Turkey (Rabasa & Larrabee, 2008). Also, a referendum that was held in France about the acceptance of Turkey to the union and criticisms related to the so-called Armenian genocide besides Turkey’s position on not recognizing the Republic of Cyprus as the representative of the island were among instances of other skepticisms against Turkey from EU (Narbone & Tocci, 2007, p. 236). So, loosening of the bonds of the membership process of Turkey was becoming a fact on both sides.

Besides the criticisms in the level of head of governments, the general idea against further enlargement in the public of the EU had also negative results on pursuing of EU conditionality in a candidate country. That was an important impact on slowing down of Europeanization process in Turkey since the ultimate reward EU conditionality, being a member of the union, was shaking increasingly (Martin, 2015, p. 115). As a parallel to these mentioned negative aspects from the EU towards Turkey, the pace of the reforms was slowing down. Besides the internal problems of Turkey such as fighting against terrorist assaults by PKK were important distraction of focusing on EU reforms (Rabasa & Larrabee, 2008, p. 80), advancing of the political power of AKP was an essential fact in the change of the discourses of relations with the EU. AKP government was strengthening its power in the government with the presidency of Abdullah Gül, a successful overcome of a party closure case and increase in the numbers of seats of the party in the parliament (Martin, 2015, pp. 113-114).

AKP’s strengthening power in internal policy after the years following 2004 made it depends less on EU conditionality as well as practices Europeanization in politics which can be seen in the velocity of reforms. That explains the practices that are limiting the freedoms in the country -such as the imprisonment of journalists and various politicians or disproportionate use of force by the police in protests- and therefore, created a circumstance of wide-protests of Gezi in 2013. (Kaliber & Aydin-Düzgit, 2016, pp. 3-4).

AKP’s enhancement of political power in the country had also a reflection on its narratives about Turkey’s stance in the EU candidacy process. In one of his press conferences abroad in the year 2015, President Erdoğan said: “It is not important whether they accept us or not. We keep up with our work. We are testing Europe. Will Europe be able to digest and accept Turkey, whose people are Muslims? If you oppose Islamophobia, then you must admit Turkey into the EU” (If EU opposes Islamophobia, it must accept Turkey as a member: Erdoğan, 2015). Consequently, the new practices of the AKP government after changing the environment in the direction of the politics was leading de-Europeanization of Turkey if the term is defined as “distancing of society and politics in Turkey from the European System of norms, values and Policy expectation” (Kaliber & Aydin-Düzgit, 2016, p. 12).

There were reactions from the EU to Turkey’s illiberal route with more characteristics of de-Europeanization in its internal statecraft. Most vividly, the state of emergency that had been implemented after the 2016 coup attempt was an important subject of criticizations from the EU. It has been especially stated that the negotiation process cannot continue since the practices of government under the state of emergency was incorporate considerations over rule of law, allegations of human rights violations, and judicial independence. Also, the referendum in the year 2017 that enables a constitutional change that brings a presidency system has also been criticized since it was damaging on the separation of powers and judicial independence (AB Nezdinde Türkiye Daimi Temsilciliği, 2021, p. 52).

On the other hand, these mentioned cooled relations between EU and Turkey have got closer again but not with the reason of Europeanization. A large number of immigrants flow to Europe through Turkey in the year 2015 caused by the civil war that occurred in Syria became an important trigger to warm-up the relations between Turkey and the EU. EU offered an agreement with Turkey to decrease the number of immigrants that flow to Europe by using Turkey as a transition country. In March 2016, EU-Turkey Statement lowered %90 of the Eastern Mediterranean route for immigration flows compare to 2015. Besides promising 6 billion euros of assistance to Turkey to arrange necessary facilities for Syrian refugees, the EU-Turkey statement of March was also arranged for the returning back of irregular migrants who arrived on Greek islands under various conditions (Council of the European Union, 2021).

March Statement between EU and Turkey led an environment to consider some topics related to accession negotiation again such as removing of veto in economic and monetary policy chapter and arguing on visa requirement improvements. All in all, these agreements were nothing more than strategic cooperation which is the accurate title to define the current relations between the EU and Turkey (Kaliber & Aydin-Düzgit, 2016, p. 5).

Conclusion

Turkey's fluctuating relations with the EU have been a subject that is occupying an essential place in both its domestic politics as its foreign policy. After the accession negotiation process is frozen caused by political reasons including disagreements with Cyprus/Greek and France, full membership of Turkey doesn't seem to realize in a close future. Although the president of Erdoğan has said “We see our future in Europe” very recently (Deutsche Welle, 2020), this speech was no coincidence when the EU was considering imposing sanctions on Turkey due to conflicts in the Mediterranean  (Deutsche Welle, 2020). On the other hand, while the EU was considering limitations on financial assistance towards Turkey due to conditions in its internal affairs related to the state of emergency  (AB Nezdinde Türkiye Daimi Temsilciliği, 2021, p. 52), there were negotiations between the two sides on 3 billion euros of monetary help due to the March Statement of 2016 that regulates constriction of immigration flow to Europe (Parkes; Pauwels, 2017).

As one of the leading countries of the EU, Germany’s new economic ties across Eurasia have strengthened with the authoritarian leaders of Russia and China (Weisbach, 2021). That draws a vivid picture of the EU’s foreign policy in the 21st century is going on more on pragmatic reasons. Rather than questioning the activities of the countries based on the values, the EU has begun to take more strategic steps outside of its borders and Turkey has no exception in this policy. When Turkey’s recent political practices with the EU are observed, it is clear that the same strategic steps have been taken for a long time. The longstanding political relations of Turkey with the EU arrived today as the choice of strategic partnership on both sides rather than relations based on EU’s normative values.

Enes Karar

Avrupa Çalışmaları Stajyeri

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