January 2013 Edited by Pelin Ayan Musil and Juraj Mahfoud ii Edited by Pelin Ayan Musil and Juraj Mahfoud January 2013 iii iv FOREWORD This report is the outcome of a one-year research project led by Anglo-American University and supported by International Visegrad Fund. It is a compilation of country reports prepared by the partner institutions in each Visegrad country: Central European University IRES Department in Hungary, Tischner European University in Poland, Comenius University Institute of Public Policy and Economics in Slovakia and Anglo-American University in Czech Republic. The Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) contributes to the research project through publicizing the report in Turkey. The first draft of this report has been presented in a public symposium held at Anglo-American University in Prague on 9 November 2012. This final version of the report is to be presented in March 2013 in Turkey, with the kind contributions of the Ministry for EU Affairs of the Republic of Turkey. We also would like to thank Bogazici University Center for European Studies for hosting the presentation of this report in Istanbul, Turkey. The views expressed in this report are solely the authors’ and do not reflect the views of the supporters. v vi AUTHORS Konrad Pedziwiatr, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the Centre for European Studies, Cracow University of Economics and Tischner European University. Alumnus of the Jagiellonian University, University of Exeter and University of Oxford specializing in sociology of migration, new social movements and sociology o religion (especially Islam), holding a PhD in Social Sciences from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium). Author of monographs 'The New Muslim Elites in European Cities: Religion and Active Social Citizenship Amongst Young Organized Muslims in Brussels and London' (VDM Verlag 2010) and 'From Islam of Immigrants to Islam of Citizens: Muslims in the Countries of Western Europe' (Nomos 2005, 2007) and numerous other scientific and non-scientific publications on Islam and Muslims in Europe and social movements in Europe and the Middle East. Member of the Centre of Migration Studies, University of Warsaw and the Committee on Migration Research of the Polish Academy of Science. (Contact: Emel Akçali, PhD is an Assistant Professor at the International Relations and European Studies Department of Central European University in Budapest. She graduated in International Relations at both the American University (Paris, BA) and at the Université de Galatasaray (Istanbul, MA). She obtained her PhD in Political Geography at Paris IV-Sorbonne in France. She worked at the Political Science and International Studies Department of University of Birmingham as a visiting lecturer and taught at Franklin College, Lugano, Switzerland before joining IRES. Her current research interests span social movements, upheavals and (trans-)formation of collective identities in the age of globalisation and Europeanisation, the state, society and politics in the Middle East, EU democratisation efforts in its periphery, non- Western and alternative globalist geopolitical discourses and critical realist philosophy. 1 Pelin Ayan Musil, PhD is a faculty member and lecturer at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy of Anglo-American University in Prague. She obtained her MA degree from Central European University and PhD degree from Bilkent University in Political Science. During her PhD studies in 2007-2008, she has studied at the Department of Government of Georgetown University as a Fulbright Visiting Researcher. Her current research interests are comparative democratization, transitions from authoritarian regimes, political parties and party systems, politics of Turkey and Middle East as well as EU enlargement. Apart from the articles she wrote on these topics, she is the author of the book titled Authoritarian Party Structures and Democratic Political Setting in Turkey (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). Mgr. Juraj Mahfoud is a researcher at the School of International Relations and Diplomacy as well as Operations Manager at Anglo-American University in Prague. He obtained his BA degree from Anglo-American University and continued his MA studies at Metropolitan University in Prague in the major of International relations and European studies. He acquired his MA degree at Metropolitan University, where he made a research on the topic “Geostrategic consequences of Turkish integration to the EU”. His current research interest is concentrated on the region of Middle East, namely the Levant countries and their influence on the Middle East as well as on the European Union. Oľga Gyarfasova, PhD is an associate professor at the Institute of European Studies and International Relations, Comenius University in Bratislava, and senior researcher at the Institute for Public Affairs (IVO), a public policy research think-tank. In her work she focuses on public opinion, voting behaviour, nationalism, and populism. She has served as a national co-ordinator of European Election Studies in 2004 and the PIREDEU project in 2009 as well as the principal investigator of CSES study. She is author, co-author and co-editor of dozens of expert publications, among them Democracy and Populism in Central Europe: The Visegrad Elections and Their Aftermath (2007) and National Populism in Slovakia (2009). 2 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION by Pelin Ayan Musil…………………………………………….5 I. POLAND by Konrad Pedziwiatr……………………………….…………………10 II. HUNGARY by Emel Akcali……………………………………………………..37 III. CZECH REPUBLIC by Pelin Ayan Musil and Juraj Mahfoud…………………61 IV. SLOVAKIA by Olga Gyarfasova……………………………………………….86 APPENDIX – Interview Questions…………………………………………………112 3 4 INTRODUCTION Among the candidate countries to the European Union, Turkey is known to have a distinctive cultural and historical identity with a large Muslim population. Thus, it has been one of the most disputable candidates for EU membership. Together with its rising role as a regional power in the Middle East nowadays, the issue of Turkey’s accession to the EU deserves to be re-debated and put on public agenda again. Directed by such an objective, this report brings together the findings of a research, which investigates the approach of each Visegrad country—Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia—toward Turkey’s accession to the EU. The main research questions that are asked in this report are: How is Turkey publicly portrayed in each country? How does the public portrayal of Turkey correspond to the political and public opinion on its accession to the EU? What are the reasons for supporting or opposing Turkey’s membership in each country? The consensus among scholars and policy experts is that elite opinion should not be our only concern if we want to make predictions about the future of candidate countries because it is the public that has the power to halt accessions. 1 Thus, there is a need to understand the causal mechanisms for why people oppose or support candidate countries. This study partly achieves this goal by focusing on the portrayal of Turkey as an EU candidate in four Visegrad countries.2 Existing studies on the EU-Turkey debate do not particularly have a Visegrad focus.3 Yet, a Visegrad focus should be of concern for two reasons. First, Turkey at 1 Simon Hug. Voices of Europe: Citizens, Referendums and European Integration (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002). Dora Husz, “Perspectives: Public Opinion – A Stumbling Block to Enlargement?” Perspectives: Central European Review of International Affairs 20 (2003): 5–39. 2 A similar study on Turkey was also conducted in France. See EDAM Report. Turquie-France - Dialogue de Sourds. Avec le Soutien de STRATIM (2010), prepared by Nicole Pope. 3 There is, yet, one exception which combines Turkish and Central European perspectives on the politics of EU accession in one volume: Lucie Tunkrova and Pavel Saradin (eds), The Politics of EU Accession: Turkish challenges and Central European experiences (Routledge: New York and London, 2010). 5 the political level receives the support of these countries even though the public opinion differs in each. The political support is contrary to the picture we are familiar with in West European countries such as France and Germany. Second, Visegrad countries share a similar cultural background and a similar experience in their accession to the EU. As a matter of this resemblance, one might conclude that it is reasonable to expect a similarity in their public opinion on Turkey’s accession. In fact, the research findings show that the four countries show similarities in following aspects: It is observed in all four that Turkey-EU debate does not really occupy the public agenda, there is usually support for Turkey’s membership at the political elite level, no big deal of Turkish immigration takes place to any of the four countries. Thus, it is the media’s portrayal of Turkey that intuitively influences people’s minds about their approach to its membership in the EU. Yet, the Eurobarometer surveys conducted in the last seven years show that the public support for Turkey’s membership in the Visegrad countries varies significantly, especially between Hungary-Poland and Czech Republic-Slovakia. According to the surveys, while Hungary and Poland are more supportive of Turkey; Czech Republic and Slovakia are closer to the public opinion observed in Western Europe, which is more skeptical and less supportive of Turkey’s accession to EU (See Graph 1 and Graph 2). So, what causes such variance? GRAPH 1: PUBLIC OPINION AGAINST TURKEY’S ACCESSION TO THE EU (%) 70 60 50 CZ 40 HU 30 POL 20 SLOVAK EU 10 0 2005a 2005b 2006 2008 2010 Source: Eurobarometer Standard Reports 63-64-65-69-73 6 GRAPH 2: PUBLIC OPINION FOR TURKEY’S ACCESSION TO THE EU (%) 60 50 40 CZ HU 30 POL 20 SLOVAK EU 10 0 2005a 2005b 2006 2008 2010 Source: Eurobarometer Standard Reports 63-64-65-69-73 In the chapter on Poland, Pedziwiatr shows that the mainstream media describes Turkey in a highly balanced way or with hints of sympathy to Turkish EU ambitions.