How the dreaded superstate became a commonwealth
[NiK: Interesting intergovernmentalist
interpretation of EU enlargement viz
Turkey.]
The question to ask is not what Europe will do for Turkey, but what Turkey has done for Europe
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday October 6, 2005
Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1585967,00.html
This week, the European Union did something remarkable. It chose to become an all-European commonwealth, not the part-European superstate of Tory nightmares. You see, the main effect of the bitterly contested opening of membership negotiations with Turkey is not to ensure that Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, which it may or may not do 10 or 15 years hence. The main effect is to set the front line of enlargement so far to the south-east that it ensures the rest of south-eastern Europe will come into the EU - and probably before Turkey. There's a nice historical irony here. Turkey, which in its earlier, Ottoman, form occupied much of the Balkans, and therefore cut them off from what was then the Christian club of Europe, is now the European door-opener for its former colonies.
The question to ask is not what Europe will do for Turkey, but what Turkey has done for Europe
Timothy Garton Ash
Thursday October 6, 2005
Guardian
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,9115,1585967,00.html
This week, the European Union did something remarkable. It chose to become an all-European commonwealth, not the part-European superstate of Tory nightmares. You see, the main effect of the bitterly contested opening of membership negotiations with Turkey is not to ensure that Turkey becomes a member of the European Union, which it may or may not do 10 or 15 years hence. The main effect is to set the front line of enlargement so far to the south-east that it ensures the rest of south-eastern Europe will come into the EU - and probably before Turkey. There's a nice historical irony here. Turkey, which in its earlier, Ottoman, form occupied much of the Balkans, and therefore cut them off from what was then the Christian club of Europe, is now the European door-opener for its former colonies.
Bulgaria and Romania are joining the EU in 2007
anyway. What was Austria's price for finally agreeing to the opening of
negotiations with Turkey? A similar promise for Croatia! One thing leads to
another. When those Balkan countries are in, they will immediately start
agitating for their neighbours to join them, just as Poland is now agitating for
a promise to Ukraine. No matter that those neighbours are former enemies, with
bitter memories of recent wars and ethnic cleansing. The mysterious alchemy of
enlargement is that it turns former enemies into advocates. Germany was the
great promoter of Polish membership, and Greece remains one of the strongest
supporters of Turkish membership.
When Serbia and Macedonia come knocking at Brussels' door, they will exclaim: "What, you have said yes to Turkey, but you say no to us, who are closer to you and obviously more European than Turkey?" Since these countries are mainly small, and since the EU already takes responsibility for much of south-east Europe's security and reconstruction, as a quasi colonial post-conflict power, the reluctant older members of the EU will sigh: "Oh, what the hell, one or two more small countries won't make that much difference anyway - our big headaches are Turkey and Ukraine." So they'll slip in.
The result is that, whether or not Turkey achieves membership over the next decade, by 2015 the European Union will cover most of what has historically been considered to constitute the territory of Europe. And it will have some 32 to 37 member states -for Switzerland, Norway and Iceland may eventually choose to come in, too. The frontline cases will then be Turkey and Ukraine, while Russia will have a special relationship with this new European Union.
Now only someone possessed of the deliberate obtuseness of a Daily Mail leader writer could suppose that such a broad, diverse European Union will ever be a Napoleonic, federal (in the Eurosceptic sense of the F-word), centralised, bureaucratic superstate. That's why those who do still want something like a United States of Europe think Monday was a terrible day for Europe.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the main author of the EU's stillborn constitutional treaty, was in despair, while Britain's Jack Straw was grinning ear to ear. Roughly speaking, the British hated the constitution because they thought it would create a French Europe, while the French hate enlargement because they think it will create a British Europe. Thus Giscard laments that these further enlargements "are obviously going to transform Europe into a large free-trade zone". That is what continental Europeans classically charge the British with wanting.
Indeed, that is what some Brits do want Europe to be. That's one reason Margaret Thatcher loved enlargement. I recently heard a leading member of the Conservative shadow cabinet say explicitly that he likes the prospect of further widening because it will make the EU what it should be, a large free-trade area. But they do not represent the thinking of the British government; and anyway they are wrong.
This larger Europe will be much more than a free-trade area, or it will be nothing. It already is much more. And most of these new members care passionately that it should be. To be just a free-trade zone, the EU would have to take a large step backwards even as it takes a large step forwards, and that it will not do. The prospect, rather, is of an entity that is as far beyond a free-trade zone as it is short of a centralised superstate. For want of a better term, I describe this unprecedented continent-wide political community as a commonwealth - but I have in mind something more like the early modern Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth than today's British commonwealth.
Meanwhile, I don't want you to think I'm ducking the question of Turkish membership. If we were starting from scratch, I would say that the European Union should have a special partnership (Angela Merkel's term) with Turkey, as also with Russia. Why? Because at its eastern and south-eastern borders Europe does not end, it merely fades away. It fades away across the great expanses of Turkey and Russia. Somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok, somewhere between Istanbul and Hakkari, you find yourself more in Asia than in Europe. This only partly European character of the two countries' geography and history suggests a special partnership, for the sense of belonging to a geographical and historical unity is important for any political community of Europe.
However, we are not starting from scratch. We have promises to keep. For more than 40 years we have assured Turkey that it will belong to our European community. We have repeated, strengthened, made concrete these promises over the past decade. The example of Turkey, reconciling a mainly Islamic society with a secular state, is vital for the rest of the Islamic world - and not insignificant for the 15 to 20 million Muslims already living in Europe. When I was recently in Iran, a dissident mullah, who had been imprisoned for 18 months for criticising his country's Islamic regime, told me: "There are two models, Turkey and Iran." Which should we support? The answer is what Americans call a "no-brainer". And so the European Union, although it has no brain - that is, does not take decisions like a nation-state - has made the right choice. Turkey is an exception: not a precedent for Morocco or Algeria. For good reasons, the European Union has just decided to include a chunk of Asia.
Before that happens, however, we have to ensure two things. First, that Turkey really does meet the EU's famous Copenhagen criteria, having a stable liberal democracy, the rule of law (with full equality for men and women), a free market economy, free speech (also for intellectuals who say there was a Turkish genocide against the Armenians), and respect for minority rights (notably those of the Kurds). Turkey still has a long way to go. Second, and quite as demanding, public opinion in existing member states, such as France and Austria, must be prepared to accept Turkish membership. Between those two, you have at least 10 years' work ahead.
So, characteristically, the European Union has done something very important this week, without itself really understanding what it has done. It has not decided to make Turkey a member. It has decided that Europe will be a commonwealth and not a superstate.
www.freeworldweb.net
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
When Serbia and Macedonia come knocking at Brussels' door, they will exclaim: "What, you have said yes to Turkey, but you say no to us, who are closer to you and obviously more European than Turkey?" Since these countries are mainly small, and since the EU already takes responsibility for much of south-east Europe's security and reconstruction, as a quasi colonial post-conflict power, the reluctant older members of the EU will sigh: "Oh, what the hell, one or two more small countries won't make that much difference anyway - our big headaches are Turkey and Ukraine." So they'll slip in.
The result is that, whether or not Turkey achieves membership over the next decade, by 2015 the European Union will cover most of what has historically been considered to constitute the territory of Europe. And it will have some 32 to 37 member states -for Switzerland, Norway and Iceland may eventually choose to come in, too. The frontline cases will then be Turkey and Ukraine, while Russia will have a special relationship with this new European Union.
Now only someone possessed of the deliberate obtuseness of a Daily Mail leader writer could suppose that such a broad, diverse European Union will ever be a Napoleonic, federal (in the Eurosceptic sense of the F-word), centralised, bureaucratic superstate. That's why those who do still want something like a United States of Europe think Monday was a terrible day for Europe.
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, the main author of the EU's stillborn constitutional treaty, was in despair, while Britain's Jack Straw was grinning ear to ear. Roughly speaking, the British hated the constitution because they thought it would create a French Europe, while the French hate enlargement because they think it will create a British Europe. Thus Giscard laments that these further enlargements "are obviously going to transform Europe into a large free-trade zone". That is what continental Europeans classically charge the British with wanting.
Indeed, that is what some Brits do want Europe to be. That's one reason Margaret Thatcher loved enlargement. I recently heard a leading member of the Conservative shadow cabinet say explicitly that he likes the prospect of further widening because it will make the EU what it should be, a large free-trade area. But they do not represent the thinking of the British government; and anyway they are wrong.
This larger Europe will be much more than a free-trade area, or it will be nothing. It already is much more. And most of these new members care passionately that it should be. To be just a free-trade zone, the EU would have to take a large step backwards even as it takes a large step forwards, and that it will not do. The prospect, rather, is of an entity that is as far beyond a free-trade zone as it is short of a centralised superstate. For want of a better term, I describe this unprecedented continent-wide political community as a commonwealth - but I have in mind something more like the early modern Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth than today's British commonwealth.
Meanwhile, I don't want you to think I'm ducking the question of Turkish membership. If we were starting from scratch, I would say that the European Union should have a special partnership (Angela Merkel's term) with Turkey, as also with Russia. Why? Because at its eastern and south-eastern borders Europe does not end, it merely fades away. It fades away across the great expanses of Turkey and Russia. Somewhere between Moscow and Vladivostok, somewhere between Istanbul and Hakkari, you find yourself more in Asia than in Europe. This only partly European character of the two countries' geography and history suggests a special partnership, for the sense of belonging to a geographical and historical unity is important for any political community of Europe.
However, we are not starting from scratch. We have promises to keep. For more than 40 years we have assured Turkey that it will belong to our European community. We have repeated, strengthened, made concrete these promises over the past decade. The example of Turkey, reconciling a mainly Islamic society with a secular state, is vital for the rest of the Islamic world - and not insignificant for the 15 to 20 million Muslims already living in Europe. When I was recently in Iran, a dissident mullah, who had been imprisoned for 18 months for criticising his country's Islamic regime, told me: "There are two models, Turkey and Iran." Which should we support? The answer is what Americans call a "no-brainer". And so the European Union, although it has no brain - that is, does not take decisions like a nation-state - has made the right choice. Turkey is an exception: not a precedent for Morocco or Algeria. For good reasons, the European Union has just decided to include a chunk of Asia.
Before that happens, however, we have to ensure two things. First, that Turkey really does meet the EU's famous Copenhagen criteria, having a stable liberal democracy, the rule of law (with full equality for men and women), a free market economy, free speech (also for intellectuals who say there was a Turkish genocide against the Armenians), and respect for minority rights (notably those of the Kurds). Turkey still has a long way to go. Second, and quite as demanding, public opinion in existing member states, such as France and Austria, must be prepared to accept Turkish membership. Between those two, you have at least 10 years' work ahead.
So, characteristically, the European Union has done something very important this week, without itself really understanding what it has done. It has not decided to make Turkey a member. It has decided that Europe will be a commonwealth and not a superstate.
www.freeworldweb.net
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
Posted: Fri - October 14, 2005 at 12:06 AM
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