Who Has Changed?

BY SAMI KOHEN
MILLIYET-BYEGM- Columnist Sami Kohen comments on an apparent positive change in European Union’s stance towards Turkey. A summary of his column is as follows:
Luxembourg’s Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker, who used to be opposed to our European Union membership, said this week in Ankara that the EU should accept Turkey within its ranks. ‘I appreciate your government’s reforms,’ stated Juncker. ‘We support you on this road. Actually we have changed, but you’ve changed a great deal as well.’ Obviously there has been a shift. The signals recently sent by the EU demonstrate this. EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen, who up to now has always spoken negatively about us, now has a positive stance towards starting our negotiations in 2005. The European Parliament, which has a history of harshly criticizing Turkey, published a report last week in favor of our getting a date for membership next year.
What has changed the EU’s mind? EU officials say that the actual change happened on our part, and so the EU is now looking at Ankara differently. Did Turkey’s rejection of US requests for the war in Iraq have anything to do with this? European diplomats I spoke with don’t think so. France, perhaps, was glad about this and so influenced. However, as one European diplomat told me, ‘The EU wouldn’t set aside the requirements for membership and welcome Turkey with open arms just because Ankara objected to the US.’ Then what changed the EU’s stance on Turkey? The answer to this is obviously our own changed stance: that is, the determination to do the work required for EU integration and the steps taken towards this purpose. The sixth harmonization package being presented to Parliament is one of these steps.
As Justice Minister Cemil Cicek said yesterday on news channel NTV, ‘Turkey cannot establish its own conditions on the path to the EU. No, we must do the things that the members before us previously did.’ In his new book ‘Europe’s Road Map,’ Turkish Industrialists’ and Businessmen’s Association (TUSIAD) representative in Brussels and noted EU expert Bahadýr Kaleagasi writes, ‘Democracy cannot be bargained over… We can make basic rights and freedoms fodder for negotiations neither with the EU nor within ourselves.’ Former President Suleyman Demirel, who considers Turkey’s integration with the EU as our great ‘European project,’ emphasizes in his book ‘The 21st Century Road Map: Democracy and Progress’ that the realization of this vision requires a strong political will and determination.
In sum, the positive change in the EU’s stance towards Turkey is the result of our efforts to harmonize with the EU. In Kaleagasi’s words, ‘We have to begin to implement the democratic reforms’.

SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION