What Turkey’s crisis means for the EU
by Katinka Barysch

Turkey has aborted its presidential election and called for an early parliamentary one. The army, it appears, is still on stand-by. Prime Minister Erdogan accused the country’s highest court of having fired “a bullet at democracy” by declaring the first round of voting on his presidential candidate, Abdullah Gul, invalid.

As the drama unfolded, the EU remained largely silent – as it should. The current stand-off in Turkey is about secularism, about the mix of religion and politics, and about the role of an army that has traditionally seen itself as the defender of the Kemalist constitution. These are issues that the EU does not have much to say about. Individual EU countries would offer rather different answers. France would probably have a problem with a head-scarf wearing presidential spouse. The UK might well be more relaxed about it. All Europeans would abhor military intervention in politics. And few would share the army’s fear that a Gul presidency could tilt Turkey towards Islamism.

What matters for the continuation of the EU accession process is not who become the next Turkish president, but the way he is chosen. Democracy is about process, not personalities. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has rightly sent a thinly veiled warning to the Turkish generals to stay out of politics and respect the rules of democracy.

If the army interfered actively in the process, the EU would have to freeze the membership talks. The fulfilment of the political part of the Copenhagen accession criteria is a precondition for conducting negotiations. Turkey could not plausibly claim to have a ‘well-functioning democracy’ if unelected generals had the last say in politics.

But if the army keeps making angry noises but otherwise stays on the sidelines, the accession process can and should continue. Indeed, the current turmoil could be a sign that Turkish democracy is maturing. Turkey may be undergoing a necessary – though stressful – convulsion on the way to a more solid and stable democracy. It may be dawning on the generals that in a ‘well-functioning democracy’ they can no longer be the ultimate arbiter of who runs the country. If Turkey gets through the current crisis with its democratic institutions intact, it will have taken another important step towards becoming a mainstream European country.

Katinka Barysch is chief economist at the Centre for European Reform.

On November 8th, the European Commission published its new strategy report on enlargement. A non-event: drafts had been widely leaked to the press; and the most explosive question – whether accession negotiations with Turkey should by wholly or partly suspended because of Cyprus – has been put off until December.

The Commission tries to be upbeat. It talks about progress in the candidates and the EU’s will to keep its enlargement promises. But it cannot paper over the fact that today enlargement fatigue on the part of the EU meets accession pessimism on the part of the member-states.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the strategy paper is hidden in an annex on “absorption capacity”. The EU’s nappy test, Nick Watt of the Guardian calls it half-jokingly. But the question of absorption capacity is dead-serious. It is not only, as the Commission paper argues, a question of how many interpreters we need in Brussels or how much Turkish farmers could cost the EU budget. It is the question of whether enlargement helps the EU to become stronger and more prosperous.

The EU’s concern about absorption capacity is neatly summed up in the following quote:

“The prospect of further enlargement at a time when the full consequences of the preceding one have not yet been absorbed must give rise to concern. The Commission considers therefore that any further enlargement must be accompanied by a substantial improvement in the efficiency of the Community s decision-making processes and strengthening of its common institutions.”

This is not from the 2006 strategy paper. It’s from the Commission’s 1976 opinion on Greece’s membership applications. The EU has always been worried about the effect that newcomers would have on its institutions, its budget and policies, its identity and standing in the world. This is legitimate. An overstretched, gridlocked or internally divided EU would be bad for its existing members and unattractive for newcomers.

However, absorption capacity is a vague and politically charged term. A new House of Lords report on enlargement (to be released on Novmeber 23rd) argues that it could become a dangerous tool in the hands of those who want to keep out Turkey or stop enlargement altogether.

The Austrian EU presidency used the term to sever the link between the Western Balkan applicants (all small, so presumably “easy to absorb”) and Turkey (“too big, too poor, too different”). But this attempt backfired. When EU foreign ministers met their counterparts from the Western Balkans in Salzburg earlier this year, they stressed that absorption capacity was key to all future enlargements. The European Parliament followed with similar statements, as did the Council and a number of politicians from EU capitals. Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn tried to limit the damage by explaining that absorption capacity was not a new criterion for enlargement. But not all EU politicians agreed. Bavaria’s minister-president, Edmund Stoiber, for example, insists that the EU’s absorption capacity is more important than a candidate’s state of preparedness.

People and politicians in candidate countries are worried: “Does it matter whether we work hard?” they ask, “The EU will not let us in anyway.” The debate about absorption capacity could weaken the leverage the EU has over countries wishing to join. Given how much trouble looms in the EU’s immediate neighbourhood, that is a big risk.

The Commission report is a laudable attempt to deconstruct the term, and render it less politically explosive. To start with, the Commission insists that integration capacity is a better term: no country wants be “absorbed” by the EU. Then it breaks up the term into three questions:

1) Is the EU able to take in new members? Here the Commission promises to analyse the potential impact of each newcomer on EU institutions, policies and the budget.

2) Are the candidates well prepared enough to fit in neatly? To make sure they are, the Commission promises tougher conditions, closer monitoring and more help during future accession negotiations.

3) Are the people in the EU ready to accept more countries? The Commission rightly says that the main responsibility for explaining enlargements – past and future – lies with EU governments. But it promises to help by producing more comprehensible information.

Neatly divided into its different elements, absorption capacity becomes a to-do list for the EU rather than a threat to the candidates. After all, says the Commission, it is “first and foremost a functional concept”.

But this implies that the EU is a static construct that needs a few technical fixes before it can take in more countries. In reality, the EU is adjusting constantly in response to new challenges, such as fighting terrorism, securing energy or coping with globalisation. Successive enlargements have helped the EU in that process.

The accession of Turkey and the countries of the Western Balkans would spread democracy and wealth further across the European continent; it would strengthen the EU’s hands in volatile Middle East and Black Sea regions; it would add young, eager workers to an ageing EU economy; and it would encourage West European countries to find a way of living harmoniously with Muslim immigrants and neighbours (not only Turkey but also parts of Bosnia and Albania are predominantly Muslim).

New members are not just a burden to be “absorbed”. They are an asset too. Future enlargements will make the EU stronger, more tolerant and more competitive. The debate about absorption capacity cannot capture this because it only looks at one side of the enlargement balance sheet.

Katinka Barysch is chief economist at the Centre for European Reform

by Charles Grant

On a recent visit to Prague, people kept asking me how the Czech Republic was doing as EU member-state, and whether it was a successful member. With the Czechs preparing to take over the rotating presidency of the EU next January, a lot of people outside the Czech Republic will start to ask that question, too.

In my view, the Czechs are neither at the top nor the bottom of the ‘class of 2004’, that is the group of countries that joined the EU almost four years ago. They have not been curmudgeonly and difficult, as have, say, the Poles, threatening to veto the Lisbon treaty because of its voting rules, or the Greek Cypriots, who have prevented the EU ending the isolation of Northern Cyprus because of their conflict with Turkey. But the Czech Republic has not become an easy-going, middle-of-the-road member like Slovenia.

The Czechs have not been afraid to take strong positions on a number of issues. On the positive side (as far as the CER is concerned), the Czechs are ardent free-traders, always voting against anti-dumping duties as a matter of principle. The government believes that EU foreign policy should take account of human rights, and vigorously seeks to promote them in countries like Belarus, Burma, Cuba and Iran. The economy has performed quite well (certainly compared with Hungary), growing by about 6 per cent a year. It meets most of the ‘Maastricht criteria’ that aspiring euro members should comply with.

But the Czechs have put aside their plans to join the euro. This is because President Vaclav Klaus, a Thatcherite eurosceptic, is deeply hostile to monetary union. Although an over-valued crown is hurting Czech exporters such as Skoda, and two thirds of the country’s trade is with the eurozone, the Czechs are unlikely to join the euro so long as Klaus is in office (he has just begun a second five-year term).

On other issues, too, Klaus often takes idiosyncratic positions that put Prague at odds with other EU capitals. He is the only EU leader to argue that climate change is not a problem, and his interventions have ensured that Prime Minister Topolanek’s government is hesitating over supporting some of the European Commission’s recent proposals on climate change.

Part of Klaus’s strange political genius is that he manages to be pro-US, and particularly pro-Bush, while enjoying a warm relationship with Vladimir Putin. His Atlanticism spurs him to welcome American radars onto Czech soil, as part of the US’s controversial (and unpopular among Czechs) missile defence system. Yet Klaus also defends Putin from his western critics, praises his achievements in Russia, and speaks proudly of the medal that the Russian president recently bestowed upon him. Perhaps it is not so strange for the leader of a small and rather weak country – that was invaded only 40 years ago – to be so respectful of the powerful, whether or not they are democrats.

When I was last in Prague, just before the country joined the EU, everybody complained about corruption. On my recent visit I was told that the problem was no better. At all levels of government, apparently, bribery may play a role. The courts, too, suffer from this malaise. The fact that corruption afflicts many other countries that have recently joined the EU – as well as some of the older members – is no excuse. During the 1990s the Czech Republic seemed in many ways the most advanced of the countries applying for membership. When it comes to governance, the Czechs are no longer ahead of the pack, and have fallen behind the Baltic states.

The Czechs are natural allies of the British. If one listens to people in the Czech government talking of the need to slash spending on the common agricultural policy, they sound like officials in the British Treasury. The Czechs support close transatlantic ties and are wary of European federalism.

Yet despite their natural sympathy for the UK, many Czechs complain of being ignored by the British. Ministers in London seldom find time to visit Prague – though French ministers are often in town, cultivating partnerships with the Czechs. Last autumn, when Czech ministers spoke out in favour of the British stance on Zimbabwe, and said they would boycott the EU-Africa summit if Robert Mugabe turned up, nobody in London bothered to call Prague to say thank you. The British are generally not the most popular people in Europe. They should therefore do more to nurture close ties with those who share their world view, such as the Czechs.

Charles Grant is director of the Centre for European Reform.

by Tomas Valasek

The Czech government floated proposals in May that would see the EU take a more active role in solving frozen conflicts in eastern Europe. The Czechs hold the EU’s rotating presidency next year, so their wish may become reality. But just what exactly can the EU offer? The four conflicts in Europe’s east, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, and Transdniestria, have been ‘frozen’ for so long that even hardened optimists have lost hope.

To investigate, I recently joined a German Marshall Fund-organised trip to one such ‘frozen’ place, Transdniestria. It’s a small, poor region, populated by ethnic Russians, Moldovans and Ukrainians. In 1992, it broke away from Moldova, which is only somewhat larger, equally poor, and populated by the same mix of Russians, Moldovans and Ukrainians (albeit in somewhat different proportions). The conflict over Transdniestria is a strange one indeed. There are no obvious ethnic cleavages. Its citizens mingle freely. Some 7,000 Transdniestrians study in Moldova, and 30,000 of them hold Moldovan transports. All major Transdniestrian businesses are registered in Moldova, which allows them to use Moldova’s privileged access to Russian and EU markets. The only person to die on the Moldova-Transdniestrian administrative border in recent years, the OSCE says, was a ‘visiting’ prostitute. She died when a patrolman accidentally discharged his rifle during the amorous act.

But there is no such thing as an ‘easy’ frozen conflict, and even Transdniestria, with its lack of obvious differences from Moldova, stubbornly resists re-integration. So what can the EU do to help? It turns out the EU has done much already: it helped bring about the relatively close business relationship that the two constituent parts of Moldova enjoy. But it could do more.

In November 2005 the EU launched a Border Assistance Mission to Moldova and Ukraine (EUBAM). The Moldovans deem it a massive success. The mission’s 120 customs and border experts trained officials working along the Ukrainian-Moldovan border. The EU-trained force has succeeded in seriously cutting smuggling from Transdniestria to Ukraine, effectively removing the breakaway republic’s major source of income. So Transdniestrian businesses have registered with Moldova in order to gain rights to export to Russia and the EU. This represents the most visible step towards re-integration of Moldova and Transdniestria to date.

More needs to be done to help nudge Transdniestria and Moldova together. In the long run, Moldova’s best hope for re-unification lies in making itself attractive to the Transdniestrians. It needs to become a much freer, more prosperous place. This would erode the authority of Transdniestria’s rulers, and entice the region’s population to support re-unification.

To this end, the Moldovans have launched drastic economic reforms. For example, they have cut corporate taxes to zero to entice foreign investors. But the economy is not picking up nearly as fast as it could. Moldova remains deeply corrupt, which discourages entrepreneurs and investors.

The country is not doing well on the political front either. It is a much freer society than Transdniestria (which is essentially a one-person fiefdom). But Moldova’s president, Vladimir Voronin, also has a serious authoritarian streak. He treats the opposition with disdain and arrogance. Worse, he rigs the system in his favour. His Communist party uses its control of public TV (the only source of news for about 80 per cent of Moldovans) to keep out ‘undesirable’ politicians and analysts. Voronin changed the election law in a way that will make it difficult for the (badly divided) opposition to form effective coalitions against him.

As a result, ordinary Transdniestrians do not see enough difference between Moldova and their own, even more corrupt and authoritarian leadership. Moldova is a freer and happier place than Transdniestria, but not dramatically so. It is not losing the battle for the hearts of the Transdniestrians, but it is not winning it either.

So the EU’s best contribution to solving Moldova’s frozen conflict lies in pressuring Chisinau to clean up corruption and keep society free. The EU has serious influence in Moldova. The country wants to join the European Union, and it has modelled its economic and political reforms after the new EU member-states. When the EU speaks, Moldova has a compelling reason to listen. What Brussels says, and what the Moldovans need to hear more often, is that the faster you grow and the freer you become the greater the chances of accession. Better yet: the freer and richer you become, the more attractive Moldova looks in the eyes of ordinary Transdniestrians. So Moldova would stand a better chance not only of joining the EU, but of joining it as a newly re-united state with Transdniestria.

Tomas Valasek is director of foreign policy and defence at the Centre for European Reform.