Arab spring one year on: Koert Debeuf

Turkey wants to be accepted as a European country, but the Arab spring has shown that the pull of the east should not be ignored, argues Koert Debeuf.

A few days ago, Rick Perry, a Republican candidate for the US presidency, said that Turkey was ruled by Islamic terrorists. That’s why, he said, the US should think about kicking them out of Nato and why we should cut their foreign aid. This was followed by a big applause. I am still speechless. This is the guy that succeeded George Bush as governor of Texas. Is this the Republican gratitude towards Turkey for its crucial help in their war in Iraq?

It would be too easy, however, for us Europeans to minimise this as one quote from one extreme American. In the last few years we haven’t been much better. Not only were there individual politicians and rightist parties that have said that Islam is an inferior religion and that Islam and democracy don’t match. And the list of those politicians, including Giscard d’Estaing, who said that the EU is a Christian project in which Turkey could never fit, is even too long to mention.

But as Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a reaction to d’Estaing, “These are emotions.” So let’s go back to the facts. In 1963, Turkey became an associate member of the predecessor of the European Union. Turkey was one of the first non-founding members of the Council of Europe in 1949 and a founding member of the organisation for economic cooperation and development (OECD) and the organisation for security and cooperation in Europe (OSCE). In 1987, Turkey applied for membership of the union, but this was blocked by Greece until 1999. In 2005, the negotiations finally started. A few years later, France and the Germany both said they would never accept the entrance of Turkey and at the same time, the Turkish Cypriots accepted the peace plan of UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, while the Greek Cypriots reject it. The result being the Greek side became a member of the EU. Even more, it is the same Greek Cypriots that are vetoing every single dossier in the EU negotiations with Turkey. Who would not be a bit frustrated?

At the same time there are elections in Egypt, Tunisia’s new president is celebrating one year without dictatorship, Libya has begun developing a state from scratch and in Syria, people are confident they will topple Assad. In all of these countries, almost all of the people are looking to Turkey. Whichever of these countries Erdogan visits, he is cheered by masses welcoming him as the new Saladin. The revolutionary youth of Egypt go to Turkey and are being treated like pashas with attention. They come back to Egypt, even more convinced Egypt’s partner is Turkey, not the United States.

Since 1923 and the end of the Ottoman Empire, Turkey has tried to forget the east and look to the west. It has done it’s best to try and become accepted as a western ally and a European country. The biggest trade-partner of Turkey is by far the EU. But if you look at the imploding European economy compared to Arab potential, what would you do? Although it’s the right time to create partnerships around the Mediterranean, the EU and Nato are creating a new curtain, from the Strait of Gibraltar to the Bosporus. Turkey lies on both sides of the Bosphorus. But if you were Erdogan, what would you do? Well, the EU can turn the tide, but it will take a long and concerted effort. And already today, it is easy to see that if we don’t turn the tide, we will regret it. A lot.

Koert Debeuf is a foreign policy advisor to parliament's ALDE group leader Guy Verhofstadt