By Ilnur Cevik
TDN- The Croatians were jubilant last week as the European Commission simply gave the go ahead to name Croatia as a candidate for membership and start accession talks in 2005.
This is of course a blow to Turkey that has been struggling for years to appease the EU member states and get a date for accession talks. Turks would have expected at least some tough negotiations for Croatia before they even considered this Balkan country eligible for membership. But we see with great surprise that the meticulous efforts to grill Turkey over practically every issue and create numerous obstacles have not been repeated in the case of Croatia.
This has not escaped the attention of the Turkish public opinion. People clearly see a bias here that is hard to explain. It is no secret that while Croatia has been making a good effort compared to the other Balkan states to put its house in order it is still way behind Turkey in too many areas to even make a healthy comparison. Yet, we see the European Commission actually giving a blank check to Croatia while despite very important reforms and human rights improvements as well as performing some mini economic miracles Turkey is still being held in limbo even to get a date for membership talks.
So when Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan starts speaking tough on the EU accession talks issue he is actually being rather diplomatic. He is not really reflecting the actual anger that is spreading among the ordinary Turks who feel betrayed. Turks see some EU member states and the European Commission constantly putting up new obstacles in front of Turkey in a systematic manner that really resembles a war of attrition. Some people feel with these obstacles Turks will sooner or later give up their struggle to become a member of the EU.
Until now we never believed such claims calling them hallucinations and prejudice. But slowly we too are warming to the idea that they simply do not want Turkey in the EU but they are also running out of alibis so they are doing things (like opening their doors to Croatia and thus insulting Turkey) in a bid to further antagonize the Turks and force them to make mistakes. It is time those bent on antagonizing and alienating the Turks in the EU start considering what the bitter consequences would be if their leaders failed to give a date for accession talks to Turkey or gave a tentative date like 2006 that would clearly mean they are simply fooling us.