Sarkozy Is Bad News For All Of Us

BY MEHMET ALI BRAND
TDN- Sarkozy`s victory in the presidential race is bad news, not only for Turkey, but also for both France and Europe. Even if he fulfills only half the promises he made during his campaign, he will further complicate the balances in Europe and deal a huge blow to Turkey`s Europe project.
Here is the sentence that sums up Sarkozy`s principle policy:
`Whoever doesn`t love France can leave...`
You may remember that in the second half of the 1990s, the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) would similarly tell people opposing the state policy on the Kurdish issue to `love it or leave.`
Sarkozy plans to modernize the French economy to make it work better. He aims to get back the leadership Paris has lost. While doing this, he`s set to follow a more conservative, right-wing policy that strains principles such as human rights and equality for foreigners, and that accepts foreigners only to the extent that it can make them `French.`
Sarkozy`s clearest policy is to keep Turkey out of Europe. No other EU country has been so unambiguous. As he sees it, Turkey is an Asian country. Furthermore, he argues, as its accession to the European family would upset balances in the EU, it should be kept outside.
Besides all this, he believes Armenians were subjected to a genocide and so says he will work to have Turkey punished.
These policies will poison Turkish-French relations in the coming years. France will be branded an enemy of Turks. This polarization will benefit both the EU opponents in Turkey and Turkey opponents in Europe. `See how France will veto us. Let`s drop our bid,` our EU-skeptics will say and increase their opposition. The two groups will feed on each other. The attempt to exclude Turkey from Europe will reach a high with Sarkozy.
Ankara`s job will prove to be harder, but it won`t be impossible. There are three reasons for this: 1. Sarkozy demonstrated that he couldn`t halt our negotiation process. So wheels will continue to turn ... 2. Nobody can exclude a Turkey which has met the criteria based only on the reasoning that it is a Muslim country. 3. No government in Turkey can sever ties with the EU and halt the negotiations.
In sum...
Our job will be harder, but the EU project will not die, as long as our government takes the necessary steps and completes the reforms. Sarkozy can`t decide whether Turkey is European or not. We cannot give him this power.