The EU and Turkey

AN ANALYSIS IN MEDIA AND WESTERN VALUES

Clearly nothing new…

Feb. 1952: Turkey becomes a full member of NATO

Sept. 1959: Ankara applies for associate membership of the European Economic Community

July 1974: Turkey invades Cyprus.

April 1987: Turkey applies for full EEC membership.

Dec. 1999: EU Helsinki Council decides on the candidate status of Turkey.

March 2001: The Turkish government adopts the National Program of Turkey for the adoption of EU laws.

17 Dec. 2004: European Council decided to open accession negotiations with Turkey on 3 October 2005

3 Oct. 2005: Accession talks symbolically opened with Turkey.

23 Jan. 2006: Council decides on the principles, priorities and conditions contained in the Accession Partnership.

12 June 2006: The EU starts concrete accession negotiations with Turkey

9 Nov. 2006: The Commission recommended to partially suspend membership negotiations with Turkey due to lack of progress on the Cyprus issue.

22 July 2007: Erdogan's ruling AKP gets re-elected with 47%

6 Nov. : The Commission recommended not to begin further negotiations on matters of justice and basic rights as long as Turkish criminal law is not reformed.

The negotiation process is said to be “open-ended”. Negotiations are expected to take at least 10-15 years.

• Giscard d’Estaing

suggested that admitting Turkey to the EU ‘would be the end of the European Union’ because ‘its capital is not in Europe and 95 percent of its population live outside Europe. It is not a European country.’

A number of different ways of looking at both the EU and Turkey began to populate media discourse…

EU as a: “Christian club” political and economic union democratic union

Turkey as a: Muslim country Secular and democratic country In Asia

If the EU was a union of European countries, how could it admit a country that was neither in Europe geographically nor European culturally?

But what then is Europe?

The meaning of Europe has shifted considerably over the last 500 years or more and has never been fixed.

‘What – and where – is Europe?’ and ‘What does it mean to be a “European”?’become more than simply idle enquiries.

Define and characterize Europe…

Problems:– Different meanings that Europe has for different

members of the EU

– Different countries have different histories and experiences that can lead to widely differing perspectives.

– In an age where individuals can have multiple local, regional and national identities, it may be difficult for there to be a single “overarching European identity”.

Role of media.

A loss of coherence?

Though Turks may “have succeeded in establishing their credentials as a westernized and a modernized society. . . Among Europeans, however, there has remained the sense that Turkey is not authentically of the West; the sense that it is alien, an outsider, an interloper in the European community” (1)

A desire to belong

A recurring drama (AKP, Adultery Law) (2)

1. Robins, K. (1996) ‘Interrupting Identities: Turkey/Europe’, pp. 61–86 inS. Hall and P. du Gay (eds) Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage.2. Christensen, C. (2005) Pocketbooks or Prayer Beads? US/UK Newspaper Coverage of the 2002 Turkish Elections, Press/Politics10(1): 109-29.

Media analysis in 4 countries in 2004 France:

– Liberation, Le Figaro and Le Monde Britain:

– The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail Greece:

– Eleftherotypia, Kathimeriniand and Ta Nea

Turkey:– Hurriyet, Zaman and Radikal

Media analysis in 4 countries in 2004. What does Europe think?

France:– Liberation, Le Figaro and Le Monde

Britain:– The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail

Greece:– Eleftherotypia, Kathimeriniand and Ta Nea

Turkey:– Hurriyet, Zaman and Radikal

This is basically the strongest reason…

Does this mean that a common EU outlook does not exist or that it cannot exist? Does this signify that a European public sphere is unlikely to emerge or that a common European identity is never likely to be forged?

facts point away from European commoness

some basic understandings and recognitions might begin to emerge.

3. Delanty, G. (2005) What Does it Mean to be a European?, Innovations: Interdisciplinary Centre for Comparative Research in the Social Sciences 18: 11-22.

4. Bruter, M. (2005) Citizens of Europe?Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Even the discussion on Turkey’s bid to join the EU can be seen as a positive step towards defining the nature of Europe and its future trajectory and,

the importance of difference in this 21st century.