Turkey Club! (Or, Turkey and the EU)

Michael Teitelbaum and Philip Martin raise some interesting questions in their article (Foreign Affairs, May/June 2003) about Turkey's potential accession into the European Union. Much of the article spends time analyzing the pertinent economic facts -- whether or not allowing Turkey into full EU membership would trigger a wave of Turkish migrant workers that might destabilize or weaken other European economies. This is a huge concern, and one that I presume has only become more wide-spread in the last few months as the global financial crisis has battered European markets.

However, I think the article makes one of its most important points early on -- that there are distinct cultural and political fears underlying much of the opposition towards admitting Turkey into the EU. Last semester, I had the chance to attend a week-long student debate in the EU Parliament that focused on the Treaty of Lisbon (an effort to strengthen the Union in the wake of the failed European Constitution) and more broadly the question of "enlargement" or whether or not non-traditional European countries should be allowed into the European Union.

The quote (in the article) from the former President of France reminds me of a lot of the research I did about French cultural fears of a more powerful European Union. Here in the United States, some variant of the "melting pot" has always run through our cultural consciousness. Even in the face of recurring domestic Culture Wars, it can be hard to grasp the European cultural mindset. The differences are apparent even on the insitutional level: France has had a "minister of culture" since the end of the 1950s, and periodically holds summits where the agenda focuses on the spread and protection of specific cultural values. Cultural nationalism, then, plays a distinct role in much of French politics. Particularly given existing fear and distrust against Muslims in France, it should not be surprising at all that there would be powerful opposition to letting in a heavily-populated middle-Eastern country into the EU.

At the end of the day, though, there is still hope. Turkey has made some remarkable strides on certain human rights issues (notably torture and some womens' rights issues) and might eventually become sufficiently "European" to warrant more consideration. Likewise, the need for a larger EU to tackle global ecological and economic issues might spur some of these hesitant European countries to reconsider. Either way, this is a key area where politics, economics, culture, and institutions are deeply intertwined.