Germany and the Question of Turkey's Membership in the European Union
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materiały studialne PISM research papers Germany and the question of Turkey’s membership in the European Union ADAM SZYMAŃSKI No. 4, MARCH 2007 SPIS TREŚCI Niemcy wobec rozszerzenia Unii Europejskiej o Turcję /5–21/ 1. Uwarunkowania stanowiska Niemiec wobec tureckiej akcesji . 8 2. Władze niemieckie wobec członkostwa Turcji w UE . 9 2.1. Lata 1996–1998 – okres rządów Helmuta Kohla . 10 2.2. Lata 1998–2005 – okres rządów Gerharda Schrödera . 12 2.3. Lata 2005–2006 – okres rządów Angeli Merkel . 18 3. Konkluzje . 20 CONTENTS Germany and the question of Turkey’s membership in the European Union /23–40/ 1. Factors determining Germany’s position on Turkey’s accession . 26 2. Official German policy on Turkish membership in the EU. 28 2.1. 1996–1998: the Helmut Kohl government . 28 2.2. 1998–2005: the Gerhard Schröder government . 31 2.3. 2005–2006: the Angela Merkel government. 37 3. Conclusions. 39 Germany and the question of Turkey’s membership in the European Union 25 Enlargement of the European Union is an incremental process which begins before formal accession of a given state and continues thereafter. One can distinguish four main areas of studies of this subject. These are: 1) the policy of candidates for EU membership; 2) the policy of member states towards EU enlargement; 3) European Union’s enlargement policy; 4) the consequences of this process.1 In this study it is the second of these areas that will be analysed, with the focus on the policy followed by German governments and presidents on the question of the accession of Turkey. The questions which need to be asked when addressing this subject concern the arguments used in support of the German position and the factors affecting it. In Germany’s case an important part has been played by the elements that are the usual determinants of the policy of EU governments. For Ziya Öniº, a Turkish scholar, these include the political complexion of the coalition (party) in power and in consequence its particular vision of Europe, the approach to European integration to which a government subscribes, and its policy vis-à-vis the United States.2 However, aside from these elements there is a whole raft of other internal and external politics-related factors to be found more rarely among EU members or peculiar to Germany which contribute to the shaping of its stance on Turkish membership and cause it to be neither uniform nor constant even during the reign of a single coalition. One of the salient features of policy in this area is that it has been highly dynamic. The German position is based on arguments of both a pragmatic and idealist nature with the proportions varying according to the circumstances. The aim of the study is to analyse the mesh of factors impacting on the formation of Germany policy towards Turkey’s accession to the EU and comparing the reasoning behind it under three different coalitions: CDU-CSU-FDP, SPD-Alliance 90/The Greens and CDU-CSU-SPD. The analysis spans the years 1996 to 2006. In 1996, that is the year that the EU-Turkey Customs Union came into effect, the prospect of EU membership began to take on a more realistic shape. In this period Turkey has recognized accession to the EU as a foreign policy priority and the member states have started debating this subject in earnest and taking concrete decisions. Comparing the positions on Turkish membership of the three coalitions which have held power in Germany requires the use of comparative analysis. An additional means of ordering the arguments used by German governments and facilitating comparisons is employment of the instruments of the European integration theory, namely three rationalist/pragmatic perspectives: a realist brand, one liberal inter- governmentalism and supranational institutionalism, and one idealist approach in the guise of constructivism.3 With respect to the stance adopted by a member state towards admission of a candidate country the realist school of thought assumes that for a EU member the chief consideration will be the pism research papers consequences of accession for its security and influence in the EU. In other words, it will support enlargement of the Union by the country in question if it judges that this will improve its own position inside the EU or bring about a more balanced distribution of power within the organization and that it will enable greater control over developments in the candidate country. According to the liberal intergovernmentalist approach the member state is likely to be in favour of accession if meaningful gains are to accrue as a result. It will support the accession of a particular country to the EU if the subsequent gains derived by the member country from the candidate’s contribution to the assets of the community are at least equal to the costs involved in the sharing of these assets. It is also important if the candidate country has well-developed economic relations with the given member of the Union. Supranational institutionalism holds that a member country will support the accession of a candidate country if this spells benefits for the Union as a whole. Finally, constructivism postulates that a member state will be sympathetic to enlargement if the candidate country in question identifies with the community represented by the EU (the identity question) and 1 Classification of EU enlargement studies according to F. Schimmelfenning, U. Sedelmeier, “The Study of European Union Enlargement: Theoretical Approaches and Empirical Findings,” in M. Cini, A.K. Bourne (eds.), Palgrave Advances in European Union Studies, Palgrave Macmillan, New York 2006, pp. 97–100. 2 The accession of Turkey tends to have the backing of governments of the left espousing the idea of an open, secular, multicultural and democratic Europe and to be opposed by ones wedded to a vision of Europe founded on the principles of democracy but with rigid boundaries demarcated by the cultural element:, i.e. the Christian tradition. Support for full Turkish membership usually comes from states which favour the intergovernmentalist Union model with enlargement at the top of the agenda while most of the opponents are countries which incline to the federal model and treat “deepening” the Union as a matter of prestige. Cf. Z. Öniº, “Turkish Modernisation and Challenges for the New Europe,” Perceptions: Journal of International Affairs, Autumn 2004, pp. 17–22. 3 For more on this subject see F. Schimmelfenning, U. Sedelmeier, op. cit., pp. 100–102. 26 Adam Szymański espouses the values and standards of the EU. In other words, support is conditional on the “European-ness” of the candidate, its positive attitude to the European integration project and espousal of the principles of democracy and respect for human rights.4 1. Factors determining Germany’s position on Turkey’s accession The position of German governments on Turkish EU membership is determined by certain specific factors, namely a long-standing close relationship between the two countries and, related to this, the presence in Germany of an ethnic-Turkish community of over 2.5 million of whom over 700,000 hold German citizenship.5 Official German-Turkish relations date back to 1761, when Frederick the Great and Sultan Mustafa III signed a treaty on friendly relations, shipping and trade.6 For the whole of the 19th century cooperation between the Ottoman empire and the German states and then from 1871 the German Empire evolved primarily in the field of military affairs. Because the Turks received arms the relationship began to develop an economic dimension, one manifestation of this being the construction of a railway network in Anatolia. By the time of the inter-war decades Germany had grown into Turkey’s most important trading partner. However, the times of greatest consequence for present-day German policy on Turkish EU membership has been the period since World War II. If during World War I the glue cementing the relationship was “brotherhood in arms,” in the immediate aftermath of World War II another bond was forged by something that had begun in the 1930s, the emigration of some 80 German academics, artists and politicians who played a prominent role in the modernization of Turkey. Mention might be made here of, for example, Ernst Hirsch, a legal scholar, Alexander Rüstow, an economist, the composer Paul Hindemith or Ernst Reuter, a future mayor of Berlin. Henceforth, alongside the official dimension of German-Turkish relations great importance was acquired by the personal dimension. Official political relations were reinforced by the presence of the Federal Republic and Turkey in the anti-Soviet bloc and shared membership of NATO and by the support of the United States for which both countries performed key roles in the Western security system. The 1950s and 1960s saw expansion of ties of partnership between the two nations which was driven not only by political determinants (which in subsequent decades extended to West Germany supporting democratic reform in Turkey) or the military aspects (supplies of military equipment worth hundreds of millions of dollars). The factor that came predominantly to the fore was the development of socio-economic cooperation. After World War II Turkey rose to second place after India among the biggest recipients of German development assistance. Since 1960 it has received aid to a total value of some €4.3 billion.7 After 1953, when an agreement was signed abolishing abolish visa requirements in travel between the two countries, what proved to be “the milestone in German-Turkish relations to date”8 was another agreement, on recruitment of Turkish workers, concluded on 31 October 1961. It sprang from the onset of a boom in the West German economy, one feature of which was a shortage of labour in the construction and metallurgical industries, and the erection of the Berlin Wall which cut off the influx of workers from East Germany.