Experts Debate Turkey's Role in Europe

Can Turkey be integrated into Europe's political culture? Two prominent experts - Udo Steinbach, Director of the German Institute for Middle East Studies (pro), and internationally-renowned historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler (contra) - answer questions on the issue.

The discussion about whether to start accession negotiations with Turkey is splitting political parties and the population of the EU. Even in the scholarly world the issue is controversial. Below, we posed questions on the issue to two prominent experts. In many respects their positions turn out to be diametrically opposed.

Udo Steinbach, Director of the German Institute for Middle East Studies in Hamburg, is a proponent of accession negotiations. The internationally-renowned historian Hans-Ulrich Wehler is against negotiations and also rules out Turkey's accession to the EU in the long term. DW-WORLD compares their positions below:

On the EU Summit, December 16 and 17

Steinbach calls upon the EU member states to vote for accession negotiations with Turkey at the summit meeting in Brussels. "The talks ought to begin at some point in 2005," says Steinbach. At the same time, he emphasizes, it must be made clear once again that the negotiations can be interrupted and put on ice at any time if it is shown that Turkey will not be able to fulfill the minimum standards of the Copenhagen criteria.

By contrast, Wehler hopes that no consensus will be reached at the summit. "I hope that a few heads of state will have the guts to say that Turkey is a large non-European Muslim state in Asia Minor. We do not want to see it as a potential leading state in the EU, as one of the states that will define the EU's overall Mid-East policy, one which will represent the biggest faction in Strasbourg due to its large population and which, because of its religious affiliation, cannot simply be divided up between Christian Democrats and Social Democrats." However, Wehler does not see much chance for a refusal.

In the final analysis, who ought to determine Turkey's role in Europe: the European citizens or the politicians?

Steinbach sympathizes with Germans' and Europeans' feeling of uncertainty about the Turkey issue. "However, at the moment all that is being discussed is the beginning of negotiations, not Turkey's actual accession." And here, he says, political leaders must respond with a clear yes. "In this important decision about Turkey, public opinion should be ignored at the moment; the vote should be cast by the EU's political leaders."

Wehler, by contrast, is sharply critical of the attitude of German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and the French head of state, Jacques Chirac. Both have spoken out explicitly on behalf of negotiations. In Wehler's opinion, they represent "the weakest breed of European politicians in fifty years." Schröder and Chirac, he insists, are ignoring the will of the European citizens. In Germany polls found a consistent 66 percent of the population to be against accession; in France the figure was 68 percent. "That opens up a huge gap, a critical democratic deficit, when leading politicians ignore majority opinion in their countries like this," Wehler believes.

Assessing reforms and progress in Turkey

According to Steinbach, over the past five years "Turkey has gone through a rapid process of upgrading to the European standards". "I am impressed by their progress. I believe it is now time to put them to the acid test." One example of this progress for Steinbach is the seven reform packages which the Turkish parliament has passed since 2002. "They cover nearly all the problem areas, from minority rights to the death penalty, from torture to economic measures and the separation of church and state." Steinbach also praises reforms in criminal law and the Turkish government's recommendation that Cyprus's Turkish population support the island's reunification.

Wehler takes a skeptical view of this progress: "At the moment these are merely laws on paper, at the very highest level of the legislature. It does not tell us how much will trickle down to the daily business of the bureaucracy, the legal authorities, the police or the courts."

Unsolved problems

Steinbach and Wehler share a certain consensus on the issue of Turkey's unsolved problems, citing human rights violations, the still-common use of torture and the lack of equal rights for women. And both criticize the fact that no lasting solution has been found for the Kurdish question. "This means that Turkey is hardly ready to accede to the EU at the present time. Important steps must be taken, further steps must be taken," stresses Steinbach.

The experts take an especially critical view of the situation of non-Islamic minorities. Wehler finds that Christian churches in Turkey are subject to "severe pressure to Islamize". "They are still barred from holding property or having their own clergy, not to mention training clergy." On this point the government has refused to make any compromises.

What do you think about Erdogan's government?

According to Steinbach, Turkey is going through a process of cautious Islamization. "On the one hand, Islam is cautiously returning to the center of society; on the other hand, there is a continued process of moving closer to Europe." He would not deny the fact that there are radicals in Turkey. "But the current Turkish government is anything but radical. This is a form of Islam which fits into a secular, laical system. This secular system fits in with Europe as well," according to Steinbach. "My Turkish friends are all skeptical about Mr. Erdogan. But in the end he took a pragmatic line in the discussions about criminal law reform, about the punishability of adultery, tending toward a Europeanization of the criminal code."

However, Wehler regards the "re-Islamization" under Erdogan as problematic, while criticizing the EU Commission's progress report as "sloppy". "Nowhere does it mention Erdogan's re-Islamization". For example, he notes, 60,000 state-paid prayer leaders have been hired. Also, it does not mention the fact that there has been no legal reform to address the problem that half of all women are married against their will or that one man in five has several wives.

Steffen Leidel

Translation from German: Isabel Cole

To get more background information on the issue, click here to get to our dossier on Turkey and Europe.