What could and should the EU do with Turkey?

Selahattin Demirtas, centre, and Figen Yuksekdag, to his left, co-leaders of the pro Kurdish Democratic Party of Peoples (HDP) lead a march towards the site of the explosions in Ankara, Turkey, Sunday, Oct. 11, 2015. Burhan Ozbilici/Press Association. All rights reserved.Early on November 4, police raided the homes of the
opposition People’s Democratic Party’s (HDP) co-chairs Selahattin
Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ on terrorism charges. Along
with them nine other MPs were detained, while the HDP headquarters was raided
by the police. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Whatsapp, now the most reliable
sources of news and journalism in Turkey, were restricted or even totally
blocked in some provinces of Turkey. The internet was slowed down country-wide.

Turkey’s democracy has had many ups and downs in
the past. However, given today’s circumstances, it is no longer possible to
name it what Collier
and Levitsky famously dubbed a ‘democracy with adjectives’.
What we see in Turkey today is a de-facto regime change to
hyper-Presidentialism and authoritarian consolidation at full speed. Unsurprisingly, international condemnation and warnings
about the state of democracy and the rule of law issued by the EU, the Council
of Europe and the US fall on deaf ears.

The EU’s response has been criticised for
forsaking the very values on which the EU was established. It is a legitimate
claim: the EU has done almost nothing to discourage or prevent the AKP government
from crushing the opposition and dissidents, breaching its constitutional
principles, the rule of law and European norms and values. In fact, except for
issuing warnings every time a group of journalists or dissidents is arrested,
the EU has revived its frozen relations with Turkey through the EU-Turkey
refugee deal, upgrading the Turkish government to a ‘key partner’ in managing
the refugee crisis.

The EU faces an increasingly impudent political
authority that does not hesitate to dismantle whatever remains of independent
media and civil society, to arrest journalists, activists and elected
politicians, and to ‘tame’ the two main opposition parties into ‘docile bodies’
so that they do not intervene in the president’s business. Unsurprisingly,
international condemnation and warnings about the state of democracy and the
rule of law issued by the EU, the Council of Europe and the US fall on deaf
ears.

The
people’s red line

The most recent example has just happened a few
days ago following the crackdown on the Cumhuriyet, the
best-known and the oldest daily among Turkey’s few
remaining independent critical news outlets. Another round of
condemnation was made by the European Commission, the German Chancellor, and
the European Parliament. They expressed deep concern about the state of democracy
and freedom of speech. The President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz wrote on
Twitter that the detention of journalists was ‘another red-line crossed against
the freedom of expression in Turkey’. The remaining
half of society is increasingly perceived as a threat. Often labelled as elites
and traitors, they now await being stripped of their rights.

Turkish PM Binali Yildirim’s retaliation against
the red line comment surprised nobody. As usual, he took refuge in ‘the people’
to warn the EU not to get involved in Turkey’s internal affairs. In his address
of the AKP group at the parliament, Yildirim noted
‘Brother, we don't care about your red line. It's the people who draw the red
line. What importance does your line have?’ In AKP jargon, the 'people' refers
to the tight majority that supported the party in the last elections. The remaining
half of society is increasingly perceived as a threat. Often labelled as elites
and traitors, they now await being stripped of their rights and being subject
to extra-legal treatment.

There
are options but no ‘free lunches’ for the EU

No further EU warning will stop the government
from systematic violations of the rule of law and the oppression of free speech.
Engaging with Turkey through mutual interests and interdependence is, in
principle, a good idea. Yet expecting that the AKP will stop short of destroying
Turkey's democracy in its pursuit of power is political blindness at best and
cynical interest politics at worst.

Can the EU do any better than issuing another
statement on the deep concern that the acts and Turkish government cause in
Brussels? Is the European Council and the Commission willing to agree on a strategy
that seeks to avert evident authoritarian consolidation in the largest
candidate country? Is there a minimal sense of responsibility in European
policies towards the people of Turkey, or do we have to content ourselves with
European realpolitik?

By opening accession chapters and promising visa
liberalisation in the midst of democratic decline, the EU has effectively given
up political conditionality in return for the EU-Turkey refugee deal and
readmission agreement. As long as Turkey keeps the 3 million Syrian refugees in
the country, the deal goes, the EU will pretend that negotiations continue. As long as Turkey keeps the 3 million Syrian refugees in
the country, the deal goes, the EU will pretend that negotiations continue.

Since the early 2000s, when Turkey was granted
official candidate status, the EU has changed. Long before the eurozone crisis
and the Brexit debates, Turkey’s membership prospects were exploited for
domestic political gains by both eurosceptic and far right parties as well as
by mainstream politicians. The French and Dutch constitutional referendums in
2005 put the project of EU integration and enlargement on hold, effectively halting
enlargement. So-called enlargement fatigue and the eurozone crisis have
obstructed a long-term vision for the future of EU enlargement. Finally, the Juncker
Commission openly acknowledged that there would be no further
membership under the term of the current Commission. In short, the possibility
of changing the course of democratic reversal in Turkey through accession
conditionality is not an option any more.

This may lead us to conclude that the EU has
actually lost its leverage over Turkey. This, however, is not the case. The EU
can still put pressure on Turkey to slow-down or prevent the consolidation of a
fully authoritarian regime at its borders. There are three options for the EU
to dissuade the government from harassing the opposition and dissidents and to
restore at least some basic level of rule of law. The EU can use the economic trade
card; it can suspend negotiations indefinitely until the government restores
the principles of the rule of law and basic freedoms; and it can issue a Plan B
that suspends the EU-Turkey refugee deal, which anyway has severe legal,
humanitarian and practical deficits.

European
trade and being left out in the cold

If the EU decides to re-engage with Turkey, a
price will have to be paid, as the AKP response may, initially, be harsh.
First, instead of sticking to ineffective condemnations of AKP policies, the EU
can focus on how it can project power over the Turkish government.

One of these areas is the customs union
agreement and the field of trade relations. The EU is an important trade
partner for Turkey as well as the largest foreign direct investor in the
country. Since the Custom Union agreement came into force in 1995, bilateral
trade between the EU and Turkey increased six-fold, while Turkish companies have
become part of European production networks. Turkish
government and business circles pressed hard in the last few years to push the
EU to renegotiate the
old Customs Union Agreement. The dialogue finally started in May 2015 with an
intention to extend its scope beyond the
manufacturing sector to cover services, agriculture and public
procurement among other objectives.

The reality is that the Turkish government needs
expanded access to the nearest and most stable destination for Turkish goods
and capital markets for several reasons: to boost the country’s economy, to
break the path of stalled mediocre growth of recent years, to recover from deteriorated
economic/trade relations with Russia and the Middle East, to alleviate the
impact of the EU’s free trade agreements with third countries, especially the
potentially negative impact of a possible Transatlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP), and perhaps most importantly, to maintain the myth of ‘economic
stability and growth under the AKP’.

The Turkish government had good reasons to be alarmed by the
EU’s increasing number
of free trade agreements with third countries. Risking being left
out in the cold due to high tariffs and customs duties in its trade relations
with third countries, economic cooperation and bilateral trade has become a key
priority for Turkey.

The EU can use future trade relations and
economic cooperation as well as the negotiations over the Customs Union
Agreement that will officially
start in 2017 as a carrot and a stick. This may sound like
using the EU’s proverbial soft power, but it probably amounts to a more realist
policy of speaking the language that the AKP understands. The Turkish
government dismisses calls for changing the anti-terror law in return for visa
liberalisation. But it will downscale its rhetoric if competition with other
developing countries over prioritised access to the EU single market is at stake.
It will downscale its rhetoric if competition with
other developing countries over prioritised access to the EU single market is
at stake.

Many people would question the contribution of
free trade agreements to development and a more equitable share of welfare
among and within countries. However, if we are concerned about the EU's place
in the world and Turkey's democracy, then the EU should make use of its power
to remind the AKP government that Turkey, at this moment, needs the EU more
than vice versa.

Be
direct about accession

Second, the EU can indefinitely suspend Turkey’s
official accession process. This might sound like a radical option. Keeping a
promise that both sides are not willing to honour will lead nowhere and damages
the EU's normative integrity. If the EU suspends its relations with the Turkish
government as part of a principled move – making clear that it is not inspired
by right-wing populism, but by concern for the Turkish people and their
democratic aspirations – the EU can win at least the normative ‘battle’ by
upholding values that it claims not only to possess, but to disperse in its
external relations. The EU should promise to return
back to the official negotiations as soon as the rule of law and freedom of
expression are restored in the country.

Such an action would put the AKP government’s
legitimacy and credibility under pressure. It would also trigger a more
realistic debate about the regime change in Turkey and the international
response to the new regime. This should, however, be done with a firm statement
that the EU does not abandon democratic constituencies in Turkey or end
accession negotiations because of religious, ethnic and cultural reasons, but
because Turkey’s elected government fails to commit itself to democratic governance.
The EU should promise to return back to the official negotiations as soon as
the rule of law and freedom of expression are restored in the country. And it
should talk to the people of Turkey directly. Only a few years ago, more than
70 per cent of them were in favour of accession to the European Union.

Some observers may suggest that proactive policy
would further deteriorate the relationship and terminate whatever leverage the
EU has in Turkey. The reality, however, is that the AKP’s determination to
bring back capital
punishment for certain crimes and all talk about taking the membership
question to a referendum make the continuation of a membership
perspective impossible. Such a referendum will be yet another step away from
democracy. The end of Turkey's official candidacy through a national referendum
would be a terrible blow to the EU’s enlargement and neighbourhood policy.

Of course, there is price to pay here. If the EU
suspends official accession negotiations, AKP politicians will upscale
EU-bashing at home, blaming Europe as biased and Islamophobic. They are likely
to find supporters for these claims in domestic nationalist circles. The
government will not hesitate to use the termination of the refugee deal as
well. It has already shown little
interest and commitment to the humanitarian
side
of regularising the migrant flow between the EU and Turkey.

Suspend
the EU-Turkey deal

This brings us to the third potential course of
action: suspending the EU-Turkey refugee deal and replacing it with a
humanitarian option that meets the norms of international refugee law. Turkey may
stop patrolling its borders and indirectly allow a free passage to human
smugglers carrying refugees from Turkey to Greece. A rise in the numbers of
refugees will definitely be manipulated by far-right actors for electoral gains
in France, Netherlands, Germany, Hungary, and Austria to name a few. How credible is the contention
that the EU-Turkey deal is an effective measure against humanitarian
catastrophe at the EU borders, and that it stops the far-right appeal in Europe,
single-handed?

The current refugee deal itself has many legal,
humanitarian and political loopholes that have made its implementation murky
and partial at best. The third
report by the European Commission on implementation was released
in late September. It noted ‘a slow pace’ of returns from Greece to Turkey
(according to the report, the total number of irregular migrants returned to
Turkey is over 1,600, a small number compared with the 2.7 million Syrian
refugees living in Turkey and the 2,900 people arriving daily between June-September
2015) together with continuing irregular crossings that put ‘additional
pressure on the reception facilities on the Greek islands’. How credible is the contention
that the EU-Turkey deal is an effective measure against humanitarian
catastrophe at the EU borders, and that it stops the far-right appeal in Europe,
single-handed?

There has been a serious decline in the overall
number of illegal crossings from Turkey; yet, closed borders left more than
73,000 refugees stranded in the
Western Balkans. Italy has
received more than 150,000 refugees from the Mediterranean in 2016. The
implementation of other key aspects has only been partially successful. The
report notes drawbacks in patrolling the Aegean against human smuggling
networks, increasing the search and rescue capacity of FRONTEX. Goals to
increase capacities of national asylum offices and appeal authorities have not
been met, while the number of asylum and border support experts at the European
Asylum Support Office and FRONTEX ‘consistently fall short of needs’.

Since the implementation of the EU-Turkey deal
has officially started, the Greek Asylum Service and the Appeals Committee are overburdened to the point of standstill. The
Appeals Committee in Greece received more than 1000 appeals against decisions
on admissibility; the target is to deal with 500 cases a month. The aim is to
increase the speed of decision on each applicant’s case. According to international human
and refugee rights organisations, this could violate the right of access to a
fair and efficient appeal system in case of a negative decision on the
applicant's refugee status.

Moreover, since the deal is in place, Turkey has
resorted to multiple
blockings, pushbacks and forced mass returns at the Syrian border.
Some reports have revealed that child
labour among Syrian refugee children in the textile industry, mistreatment
and violence against Syrians, and sexual
harassment of refugee women have seen a rampant increase.

Evidently, an openly authoritarian and Islamist
government in Turkey will not be a trustworthy partner and definitely not a
‘safe third country’ for refugees. Under these conditions, it cannot guard the
EU’s borders and save the EU from ‘the trouble’ of irregular migration and
refugees.

Sooner or later, the EU will have to face
criticisms on humanitarian grounds and on the shortcomings of the deal. This is
why human
rights organisations and some
member state politicians have called for an alternative and more
humanitarian approach than the '1:1 framework'. According to this framework, the EU
resettles a Syrian from Turkey for every Syrian returned to Turkey from the Greek
islands.

An alternative plan would require genuine
intra-EU solidarity with border countries like Greece and Italy as well as scaling
up resources for search and rescue and asylum processing capacity of member
states in lieu of outsourcing European border security. Yet, it would also mean
preventing the Turkish government from the threat directed at the EU, to ‘flood
Europe with refugees’.

Furthermore, the question of far-right support
awaits an answer from mainstream parties on the right and left regardless of
the future of the EU-Turkey refugee deal. Whether the agreement will be longterm
or not, or whether it prevents irregular migration, far right groups do not
need ‘tangible enemies’. In fact, they attack the ideas and values of pluralism
and diversity that underpin the united Europe. What is more, the existing
migrant communities have long been targeted by radical groups. If far-right
politicians need to prove ‘the danger’ to their constituencies, they will
indiscriminately point to old migrant communities and recently arriving
refugees. With or without the refugee deal with Turkey, the EU and member state
leaders are obliged to think about an effective counter-response to the rising
far-right appeal in Europe. The refugee deal's
termination will not trigger a new wave of migrants coming from Turkey, because
a dictatorship cannot live with open borders.

Finally, there is another aspect of Turkey's
threats to open the borders: Given the current domestic escalation, it is
actually a fallacy to suggest that the Turkish government can open its borders
to 'flood Europe'. After the purges against hundreds of thousands of people,
thousands of Turkish citizens are ready to escape the country. If anything, the
AKP government will have to secure its borders to the point of sealing them off
completely, in order to prevent critics of the regime from fleeing the country.
The AKP's refugee game is a bluff that can easily be exposed. The refugee deal's
termination will not trigger a new wave of migrants coming from Turkey, because
a dictatorship cannot live with open borders.

Time to
reclaim a dream

The short to mid-term perspective is gloomy indeed.
The country is set for an authoritarian and personalised presidential system that
will destroy the country's economic, political and social potential. This is a
grave moment of world historical importance, where the (albeit weak and
contested) democratic path dependence of a pivotal country is about to be
aborted. If the EU and its institutions continue their policy of
non-engagement, while watching Turkey on the road to self-destruction and state
failure, one may wonder whether the EU ever again will play any decisive role,
not in world politics, but in helping to reduce conflict in its immediate
neighbourhood. If it fails to do so, then what doe we need the EU for?

Many Europeans may not be too concerned about
Turkey’s democracy. Some in the populist right may even rejoice at Turkey's
rapid self-destruction, as it also destroys the possibility of the country's
eventual EU membership. Yet, the European Union should know better.
Authoritarianism, civil war and state failure in Turkey will not be limited to
Anatolia. It will take place in the cities of Europe, in the Turkish communities
in Germany and France, Austria and Netherlands and on the Union's immediate
borders. Even a security-minded Europeanist unsympathetic towards Turkey's
(former) European aspirations would see that it is in the EU's urgent interest
to avoid this horror scenario.

A civilisational litmus test

The European Union is in a deep crisis. If it
fails to help Turkey return to a minimum of rule and law, and if civil war in
Turkey shifts from a looming possibility to reality, then this crisis will
deepen and radicalise. Unfortunately, what the EU can do and what it is willing
to do with regards to Turkey’s regime change are not the same.

The EU seems to be too divided to come up with a
joint response to Turkey’s crisis, much less to effectively respond to the threats
of xenophobia and racism that target migrants, refugees and liberal values in
Europe. Brussels' promotion of ‘normative power’ in the last decade was a sweet
dream. Now, it is high time to reclaim this dream and make it credible.