David Cameron’s words on Turkish accession to the EU have stoked up some
thought-provoking comments on this site. I thought Dan Hannan’s blog today is particularly insightful (though that’s like assessing an Alp).Conservative support for Turkish accession to the Community is of course not new. The policy was famously supported by Margaret Thatcher in the days of Turgut Özal, and for many of the reasons cited elsewhere.
The reality remains that Germany has issues with demographics; France is still struggling with defining a European national identity; Greece remembers Smyrna; some Commission officials hum the tunes of Midnight Express, or of the Kurdish Relief Concert; while many diplomats in Brussels have wrapped themselves so closely with the ideals of Schengen and freestanding European Defence that they now shudder at the thought of a common border reaching out to the headwaters of the Euphrates.
But regardless of what the Conservative leader may say, the game has already moved on. The Lisbon Treaty included a section cleverly inserted by Giscard d’Estaing precisely to address the Turkey issue. As new Clause 7a spelled out,
1. The Union shall develop a special relationship with neighbouring countries, aiming to establish an area of prosperity and good neighbourliness, founded on the values of the Union and characterised by close and peaceful relations based on cooperation.
2. For the purposes of paragraph 1, the Union may conclude specific agreements with the countries concerned. These agreements may contain reciprocal rights and obligations as well as the possibility of undertaking activities jointly. Their implementation shall be the subject of periodic consultation.’
If I’ve pointed this out before, I do so again here as it still seems nobody in the Foreign Office has explored (in public at least) the consequences of this invention. By legerdemain, the French are already more than halfway to having achieved their diplomatic objective with the Bosphorus, while incidentally setting out a position that settles the EU’s future relationship with countries like the Ukraine, Israel, Tunisia - who knows maybe even further afield.
Turkey might see it as a loss, but if it allows Ankara to find the middle ground for trade and friendship short of the monstrous costs of full membership, then it’ll be the one smiling. And by taking a short step towards the EU, it will also show governments like that of the UK that there is another option to submitting to the stranglehold of full union.
Perhaps with Ankara moving closer to the Brussels, and London in time stepping away, we’ll meet in the middle. Turkey’s EU future has massive implications whatever happens. We may yet end up closer to Turkey than anyone in Whitehall can possibly imagine.
