{"id":27527,"date":"2014-12-19T05:47:55","date_gmt":"2014-12-19T05:47:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/?p=27527"},"modified":"2014-12-19T05:47:55","modified_gmt":"2014-12-19T05:47:55","slug":"has-turkey-come-to-the-end-of-its-eu-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.firdevstalkturkey.com\/has-turkey-come-to-the-end-of-its-eu-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Turkey come to the end of its EU journey?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Turkey\u2019s EU accession that began in October 2005 has never been at a lower point than today. Relations have been on a downward trend ever since the heavy-handed response to last year\u2019s Gezi protests. The corruption allegations in Turkey against people close to the government and the failure to investigate them have made it worse. The straw that really broke the camel\u2019s back was the December 14th<\/sup> raids, which were the final stage in worsening the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary. Following recent changes to the law, the purge targeting journalists and a police chief close to the G\u00fclen movement have prompted unprecedented reaction from the EU.<\/p>\n Barely a week after her high level visit to Turkey, Federica Mogherini, EU High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy, together with Johannes Hahn, Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy and Enlargement Negotiations, issued a strong statement describing the arrests as incompatible with freedom of the media, a core principle of democracy.<\/p>\n President Erdo\u011fan\u2019s rapid reaction was to tell the EU to mind its own business. \u201cThey say they will give a democracy lesson to Turkey. Come here, so we can give you a lesson in democracy” he said.<\/p>\n If the Turkish President, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister all assumed that their defiant language in response to the criticism would have made the EU back off, they clearly miscalculated.<\/p>\n For it increased the feeling that it can no longer be \u201cbusiness as usual\u201d and turned some of the best-known Turkey supporters against them. In all the years I have known him, Andrew Duff, a European policy expert and a former Member of the European Parliament was one of them. In an article he wrote for Euractiv.com <\/a>\u00a0, he called for Turkey\u2019s EU accession negotiations to be suspended.<\/p>\n \u201cErdogan knows how to be elected democratically but not to govern so. The opposition parties are insulted. Religious and cultural minorities, notably the Alevis, are discriminated against. The liberal media, NGOs and universities are assailed. The reform of mainstream state education is neglected in favour of Islamic [Imam] Hatip schools. Secular liberal Turkey is challenged by the rise of conservative Islamic family policy. In short, Turkey is becoming less and less European\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Speaking at the European Parliament on 17th<\/sup> December, another Turkey-friendly parliamentarian\u00a0 Marietje \u00a0Scaake was even more outspoken.\u00a0 \u201cOur dream of a European Turkey has turned into a nightmare\u201d<\/a> she said, adding, \u201cIt is time for a wake-up call\u201d.<\/p>\n Europeans monitor and analyse Turkey better than Turkish officials give them credit for. Marietje Scaake\u2019s comments about the nature of the past relationship between the Erdo\u011fan government and the Pennsylvania-based preacher Fethullah G\u00fclen and his supporters were spot on.<\/p>\n \u201cMembers of the Fethullah G\u00fclen Hizmet movement and the AKP have created monsters together by helping each other in a coalition that long turned against everything on their combined path. Now, they turned against each other leading to even more violations of the rule of law\u201d she said.<\/p>\n Protesting \u201cthe unlawful intimidation by state officials of journalists and other free voices in Turkey, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment, backdoor pressures on media bosses, and unacceptable smear campaigns against those who seek to expose corruption and official abuses,\u201d The Association of European Journalists <\/a>\u00a0\u00a0(AEJ) also acknowledged the past complicity of those\u00a0 journalists detained. The AEJ was aware of the accused journalists and their media being silent or even supportive before the detention and arrests of journalists such as Ahmet \u015e\u0131k, Nedim \u015eener and Soner Yal\u00e7\u0131n, but made it clear that \u201cthis cannot be a reason to stay silent against the treatment they are confronted with today\u201d.<\/p>\n The AEJ\u2019s President Otmar Lahodynsky and Vice President and The Representative for Media Freedom William Horsley called on the Turkish authorities to produce evidence to show that the arrests were ordered for legitimate democratic and lawful reasons, and not simply to protect those in positions of high public office.\u00a0 \u201cA free press cannot be silent, and a regime which silences the press and journalists cannot be called democratic\u201d their statement said.<\/p>\n It is Turkey\u2019s falling standards in democratic institutions, the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary that dragged the relationship into a deep crisis. However, with the present security situation in the Middle East, worsening relations with Russia and the fragility of the European economies, the EU is not likely to act rashly. Equally, the NATO member Turkey, which receives the largest part of its foreign direct investment from the EU, its biggest trading partner, cannot afford to walk away from the EU.<\/p>\n Yet, both sides have their increasingly reluctant publics to reckon with.<\/p>\n