Turkish Foreign Policy and the Politics of Europeanization, 1990-2007

Privileged partnership provides a special form of cooperation with the European Union without becoming a full member. The EU has offered privileged partner-ship as part of a strategy to manage its relations with the third countries.

The Maastricht Treaty, known as the Treaty on the European Union, was finally signed in February 1992, which entered into force in late 1993. The organization of “European Union” owes its name and its political status to the Maastricht Treaty. This treaty also defined the key principles of and the institutional framework for the CFSP that would become the third pillar of the European Union.

Article 3 of the Maastricht Treaty stated that members of the Western  European Union (WEU), which was established as a collective security and defense mechanism in 1948 prior to the formation of the EC, would be integrated into the EU structure. The WEU would develop the operational capacity of the EU while defining the organization’s security identity.

Acquis communautaire refers to the legal framework of the EU. It contains accumulated legislation including the EUwide court decisions, regulations, legal acts, and best practices. The Acquis has 35 chapters, specialized on different policy issues from fishery to justice to home affairs.

The Luxembourg Summit decisions triggered the rise of “anchor-credibility dilemma” as the leading psychology of Turkish policy makers.

Anchor-credibility dilemma: refers to the decreasing openness and credibility of rewards or punishments by conditionality mechanisms in the accession process (Uğur, 1999). Students of Europeanization are mainly concerned with “conditionality-based” models, which suggest that the EU membership status (as being the ultimate end game of the accession process) is the anchor for reform in candidate countries’ domestic politics.

Greece became a full member of the EC in 1981. This added a new dimension to the EC’s attitude toward Turkey’s membership. The use of veto power by Greece over the issues related to Turkey became an important game changer. In the 1980s, the Greek governments adopted a strategy of internationalizing its disputes with Turkey such as the Cyprus conflict and the disputes in the Mediterranean and the Aegean to promote its national interests (Tsakonas, 2010). According to Greek political elites, the EU membership was an important platform to mitigate regional conflicts in its neighborhood, balance Turkey’s power as well as enforce Turkey and the Turkish Cypriots to make concessions toward a settlement in Cyprus. Unanimity principle in the voting procedure strengthened Greece’s hand with a veto power over Turkey’s further attempts for EU accession.

After the 1997 Luxembourg Summit, Turkey adopted a new strategy, which was reactive and somewhat coercive. This new strategy was structured on the idea that any attempt of the Greek Cypriots to unite with the EU would be reciprocated with further political integration between Turkey and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC).

The 1999 Helsinki European Council decisions on Turkey’s candidacy breathed new life into Turkey’s EU aspirations. In order to manage the process of EU harmonization, the Turkey-EU Association Council meeting, held in April 2000, published an Accession Partnership Document. The document aimed to set the principles, conditions, short-run objectives and timetables to organize and monitor Turkey’s EU harmonization process.

Having a concrete membership perspective, Ankara prompted a remarkable reform process in many issue areas. External incentives supported by the EU conditionality mechanism turned out to be effective and the Turkish government adopted EU harmonization packages regarding highly sensitive political issues, including the abolition of death penalty in times of peace, non-Muslim minorities’ religious property rights, broadcasting in languages other than Turkish, and normalization of civilmilitary relations.

The 2002 Seville European Council supported Turkey’s prospect to start accession negotiations with the EU. Regarding the next phase of Turkey’s candidacy, the EU Council stated that “new decisions could be taken in Copenhagen in the light of developments in the situation between the Seville and the Copenhagen European Councils, on the basis of the regular report to be submitted by the Commission in October 2002” (Seville European Council, June 12-13, 2002).

The United Cyprus Republic was described as an independent and unitary state with a federal government single international legal personality and two equal constituent states. The establishment of a bi-zonal, bi-communal central Republic was aimed to satisfy the need that Cyprus had to be represented by a unified legal entity in the international platforms, was introduced as a response to the EU’s determination to integrate with a unified Cyprus.

On November 11, 2002, to catch up with the delicate agenda, Annan presented his plan named the “Basis for Agreement on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem.” The plan proposed that, with the assistance of the UN, the two leaders would sign a document confirming that they committed themselves to finalize negotiations for the “Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem” (known as the Annan Plan) by February 28, 2003. After a revision process, the final version of the plan would be submitted to separate referenda on March 30, 2003.

The Berlin Plus Agreement refers to a comprehensive package of arrangements finalized in early 2003 between the EU and the NATO allowing the EU to make use of NATO assets and capabilities for EU-led crisis management operations (www.eufp.edu).

In December 2002, the European Copenhagen Council declared that the so called Republic of Cyprus had concluded accession negotiations with the EU together with other nine candidate countries and it would become an EU member state on May 1, 2004. This meant that the solution of the Cyprus conflict was not a precondition any longer for Cyprus to become a full EU member (Copenhagen European Council, December 12- 13, 2002).

In October 2004, the European Commission published its regular report on Turkey’s progress toward the EU membership and its advisory opinion on the initiation of the accession negotiations with Turkey. Concerning the start of accession negotiations with Turkey, the Commission declared that “in view of the overall progress of reforms, and provided that Turkey brings into force the outstanding legislation, the Commission considers that Turkey sufficiently fulfills the political criteria and recommends that accession negotiations be opened” (European Commission, 2004).

As it was agreed at the Brussels Summit, Turkey signed the Additional Protocol on July 29, 2005, and extended the Ankara Treaty to all EU member states including Cyprus. On the other hand, the Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a declaration stating that Turkey would continue to acknowledge “the Greek Cypriot authorities as exercising authority, control and jurisdiction only in
the territory south of the buffer zone, as is currently the case, and as not representing the Turkish Cypriot people and will treat the acts performed by them accordingly” (Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 29, 2005).

On October 3, 2005, the European Council published and announced the Negotiation Framework Document for Turkey. In the Framework Document, the EU pointed out that the advancement of negotiations with Turkey was dependent on the following points: Turkey’s further reform performance toward fulfilling the Copenhagen criteria; the obligations of the acquis; the ratification and the complete implementation of the Additional Protocol; Turkey’s progress on the resolution of the Cyrus conflict; and the normalization of its relations with its neighbors and with all EU member states (Council of the European Union, 2005).

Based on the Commission’s recommendation, on December 11, 2006, the European General Affairs and External Relations Council decided to suspend negotiations on eight chapters concerning Turkey’s relations with Cyprus. The Council stated that until Turkey fulfill its commitments under the Additional Protocol to the EU-Turkey Association Agreement, the EU would not open new chapters. In addition, the European General External Relations Council stated that the Council’s conclusion on the suspension of eight chapters would be revised until the end of 2009 based on Commission’s future recommendations and Turkey’s progress in fulfilling its responsibilities emanating from the Additional Protocol (European General External Relations Council, December 11, 2006).

The Eurobarometer program was launched in the early 1970s as a bi-annual public opinion survey (“repeated cross-section”) in all member states of the European Union on behalf of the European Commission. During the 1990s the program expanded considerably in topics, frequency, and instruments. Special topical modules enlarged the classic Standard Eurobarometer, establishing (multi-)topical add-on surveys under each wave (www.gesis.org).