David Cameron’s synthetic anger at the slow pace of the negotiations over Turkey’s entry to the EU has been described as “baloney”, and the ex TV PR man utterance was also full of sound and fury about Gaza. It signified very little and was designed largely for domestic consumption in Ankara. Clearly Cameron did not represent any impatience on his own electorate’s part at the slow movement of talks on Turkeys’ EU entry. Against entrenched French and German opposition talks have been in stalemate for many months. The most recent poll in the UK showed only 30 per cent in favour of Turkish entry as opposed to 50 per cent against. In the EU only Swedes favour Turkish entry.
There is a strong school of thinking in Brussels that suggests that the reason for the British Conservatives’ enthusiasm for allowing the Turks in lies in the belief that their entry as the largest population in the union would fatally undermine the EU. As well as a huge potential influx of labour most of whom would head for places like Austria, the Netherlands, France and Germany, the vast Turkish agricultural sector would pose a real threat to heavily protected French farming interests. It was easy for Cameron to sound artificially aggressive about French statements about the Turks not being European enough. The truism is that Turkey is a unique balance between secularism and a Muslim identity and that as a NATO member it is vital in achieving any stability in the region.
It will be domestic changes within Turkey that may be the crucial factor on whether it joins the EU. A recent poll puts the opposition CHP Social Democrats at 33 per cent against prime minister Erdogan’s AKP at 31 per cent. Erdogan has staked a great deal on achieving real progress on Turkey’s progress towards EU membership. However, there is real cynicism now in Turkey as to whether the French and Germans will ever let the country join. The Turks are fed up with both real and imagined insults they have received about their EU aspirations. It appears that Erdogan’s decision to break ranks over sanctions against Iran may rebound against him because of a suspicion that a year out from elections he is seeking to curry favour with Muslim voters. To this is added growing evidence that the Turkish government deliberately sought a confrontation with Israel by providing support for the boats sent to break the blockade on Gaza. The day after Cameron left the German foreign minister flew into Ankara with a more conciliatory line towards the Turks than his country has previously held. The real question is whether this was about real membership or associate membership with the pie in the sky offer of becoming full members in 2025. While the EU has recently agreed to open another chapter of Turkey’s membership negotiations, the question lingers as to whether such visits represent yet more ‘jam tomorrow’ diplomatic appearances.