Turkey - Eu Relations
Post-Helsinki Phase
The recognition of Turkey as a candidate for accession at the Helsinki European Council in December 1999 ushered a new era in the relations between Turkey and the EU. For both parties, Helsinki marks a qualitatively new beginning and a process of strategic mutual transformation.
ACCESSION PARTNERSHIP, THE NATIONAL PROGRAM AND RECENT PROGRESS TOWARDS ACCESSION
As foreseen in the Helsinki European Council conclusions, the EU Commission started to prepare an Accession Partnership for Turkey, which was declared on March 8th, 2001. On the other hand, the framework regulation designed to furnish the legal basis for the Accession Partnership was adopted by the General Affairs Council on February 26th, 2001. The regulation aims at combining all EU financial assistance under a single program. The Accession Partnership was formally approved by the Council on February 26th, 2001. With the adoption of these two documents, an important legal procedure concerning Turkey's accession strategy was finalized.
After the approval of the Accession Partnership by the Council and the adoption of the Framework Regulation, the Turkish Government announced its own National Program for the Adoption of the EU acquis on March 19th, 2001. The National Program was submitted to the EU Commission on March 26th, 2001. The National Program has been produced with a careful appreciation of the short and medium term priorities as spelled out in the Accession Partnership.
Following these important developments, the 40th Turkey-EU Association Council meeting was held in Luxembourg on June 26th, 2001. In this second Association Council meeting after Helsinki, progress achieved within the framework of Turkey's pre-accession strategy was evaluated and a number of decisions were taken, concerning Turkey's participation in Community programs, providing Turkey with full access to TAIEX offices and the establishment of joint consultation mechanisms that will convene regularly in order to discuss trade matters related to the Customs Union. The next meeting is envisaged for 16 April 2002.
Progress towards accession continues along the path set by the National Program. The most pressing aim here is the opening of accession negotiations, which depends on the fulfillment of the Copenhagen political criteria. Within the last year, Turkey took a number of important steps towards this end. The most important among these is the major review of the Constitution. Thirty-four Articles of the Turkish Constitution have recently been amended and many of these amendments (22) actually coincide with the provisions of our National Program. The package of constitutional amendments covers a wide range of issues, such as improving human rights, strengthening the rule of law and restructuring of democratic institutions. These form only a part of the deep political reform process that Turkey has initiated. They are being followed by complementary legislative and administrative measures to ensure their implementation.
On the economic front, in line with the National Program and in response to the serious economic crisis that Turkey has been going through, numerous reform measures have been adopted. Therefore, considerable progress has been made in meeting the priorities envisaged in our National Program. Work on the harmonization of Turkish legislation with the acquis also continues unabated.
During the whole year, the EU on its side, worked to finalize its internal procedures on Turkey's participation to the Community programs and the adoption of the single framework for financial assistance to Turkey. The related decisions were finally adopted by the Council on 17 December 2001. With the single framework, from now on PHARE procedures will be applied in EU-Turkey financial cooperation. As far as Community programs is concerned, Turkey will be able to participate in them as of 2002, with the completion of the Framework Agreement.
LAEKEN EUROPEAN COUNCIL
The Laeken European Council of 14-15 December 2001 had important implications for EU-Turkey relations in general and the accession process in particular. Foremost among these is the possibility of opening accession negotiations with Turkey, which for the first time has been explicitly mentioned at the highest levels. Turkey's recent concrete steps as regards European Security and Defense Policy, together with the recent developments in Cyprus also had a positive impact on this conclusion. Another important decision taken at Laeken is that Turkey will be taking part in the Convention on the future of Europe on an equal basis with the other candidates. This can be considered as a progressive step, in the sense that the EU considers Turkey to be part of a common future. Thus, a clear membership perspective along the lines of the other candidates has been given to Turkey.
CONVENTION ON THE FUTURE OF EUROPE
Having established the institutional framework necessary for an enlarged EU, the Nice European Council of December 2000 also called for a deeper and wider debate about the future development of the EU. To this end, a declaration on the "Future of the Union" was annexed to the Nice Treaty and the debate was formally launched in 2001. In 2004, an Intergovernmental Conference will be convened to finalize the debate.
In order to structuralize this debate and prepare the groundwork for the forthcoming IGC, a "Convention" was set up at the Ghent Informal European Council meeting of 19 October 2001 and its rules of procedure were agreed upon. The Convention will consist of government representatives, members of national parliaments, members of the European Parliament, Commissioners and NGOs. Candidate countries will also be represented in the Convention on an equal footing with member states. In its preparatory work, the Convention will mainly focus on four themes: the status of the Fundamental Rights Charter, the role of national parliaments within the European architecture, sharing of responsibilities between the Union and member countries, the simplification of EU's founding Treaties.
The status of the Convention was stipulated by a specific declaration adopted at the Laeken European Council. According to this declaration, the Convention will hold its first meeting in 1 March 2002 and at the end of its preparatory work, will submit a report to the Council as a recommendation. Candidate countries will take part in the Convention on equal basis as the member states; nevertheless they will not have the right to prevent a consensus.
In accordance with the Laeken European Council Conclusions, Turkey will participate in the Convention on an equal status with the other candidate countries and will join the Convention's work with two parliamentarians and a government representative.
SCREENING PROCESS
At the Association Council meeting of April 11th, 2000, 8 sub-committees were set up with the task of monitoring the process of analytical examination of the acquis. The sub-committees completed their second round meetings within July 2001.
Substantial progress has been made during these meetings. The acquis has become more tangible and meaningful for the Turkish bureaucracy. Yet in this process, the need for a more detailed evaluation of the acquis became apparent. Therefore, Turkey suggested initiating a formal screening exercise. The request was especially pronounced during meetings with the Commission officials, before the announcement of this year's Progress Report.
The fact that the Progress Report for 2001 did not propose the initiation of a screening process for Turkey is its most negative aspect. Initiating the screening process with Turkey would have been important in two aspects. Firstly, it would indeed provide a further technical capacity of developing the integration process. Secondly, beginning the screening process would give added impetus to the implementation of the reform measures undertaken by the government in the political and economic spheres.
It is an unfortunate development that a number of EU Member States have made the initiation of the screening process a political issue and identified it with accession negotiations. The fact that there is a linkage between screening and membership negotiations is not challenged. However, there are no conditions to start a screening process, while to begin accession negotiations, political criteria must be fulfilled. Moreover, as the experiences of other candidate countries reveal, there are no uniform procedures for the initiation of the screening process. As the Helsinki European Council Conclusions pointed out, there should be no discrimination between the candidate countries and future steps for Turkey should also be similar to those of the other candidates.
Nevertheless, in the Progress Report, the Commission recommended starting a new phase in the pre-accession strategy by involving a detailed scrutiny of Turkey's legislation and its timetable for alignment with the acquis. While unsatisfactory in responding to her requests, Turkey will assess the Commission's proposal positively. The sub-committees will continue to monitor the progress. We envisage that the 3rd round will complete its work during the Spanish Presidency.
2001 REGULAR REPORT AND STRATEGY PAPER
This year the European Commission prepared its fourth annual Progress Report for candidate countries. As all other reports, 2001 Progress Report for Turkey was announced on 13 November 2001. On the same day, the Commission also declared its Strategy Paper, introducing proposals on methods to be applied in the future, within the framework of the enlargement process.
Progress Reports evaluate the candidate states' progress towards membership only for that specific year. Compared to previous ones, there is a notable difference in this year's Report for Turkey. It was drawn up in a more careful manner in view of the momentum created by the recent constitutional amendments. Those matters that were found wanting were also enumerated in the same way.
It is evident that some of the weaknesses pointed out in the Report concerning fundamental rights and freedoms will disappear as our National Programme comes to life with all its aspects. In fact, this assumption finds its place in the Report, which states that as the constitutional changes are reflected into the secondary legislation, these weaknesses will gradually disappear.
On the other hand, the steps taken in Turkey concerning improvements in the economic, social and cultural rights areas, training carried out in the human rights field and the modernization in the prison system were found to be positive by the EU Commission. This assessment is constructive and an encouragement for Turkey's ongoing reform process carried out in these fields. Turkey has lately made some real progress deserving attention and it is believed that individual cases ought not shadow these developments.