BY ERGUN BABAHAN
SABAH- Turkey is getting ready to enter a club whose influential members do not view its membership very favorably. Whether we accept this or not, the European nations are not only against Turkey’s membership in the European Union but also their own enlargement process.
The results of this week’s referendums in France and the Netherlands show that the main pillars of the EU don’t like ‘newcomers’ very much.
Now, the Erdogan government has to undertake a great duty, as do the European leaders.
Firstly it must be realized that the EU project is not a popular movement. It is something which was planned only by a limited core of the European elite at the beginning. Later, this became a civilization-wide project.
Today what the European leaders must do is to proceed on the path drawn by its founding members without bowing down to populist pressures.
The EU has been able to make successful changes in nearby countries using a force called ‘soft power.’
The biggest argument European politicians used against the use of brute force by the United States was the ability to change communities by the promises of the EU project.
We’ve seen this in Turkey too. With the influence of this soft power, we’ve achieved reforms which couldn’t even be dreamt of just three or four years ago. We’ve made sweeping developments in the areas of human rights, democracy and the law.
But are these enough? Of course not... However, our determination to continue with reforms is up to the EU leadership’s stance: It should not slam the door in our face.
In order to prevent Turkey and the Balkans from becoming unstable and great sources of threat, the EU should claim to be the owner of what it signed last Dec.17 and start our membership talks this Oct. 3.
In such a period, the AKP should also play a very important role: It should carefully avoid giving any ammunition to Europe’s suspicious public and its demagogic politicians to work with.
Meanwhile, it should accelerate the reform process. We know that this process will give a brand new appearance to Turkey. The Justice and Development Party (AKP) should not sacrifice the next generations’ chance to live in a fully democratic and prosperous society for short-term political gain or to preserve balance within the party.