Only an exception?” “

A short document prepared by the Church and Society of the Conference of European Churches (CEC) and the secretariat of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of Europe (COMECE) reviews the status of the process of Turkey’s bid to enter the EU. It also contains a reflection on the attitude within the Churches to Turkey’s accession to the EU. After the entry of 10 new member states on 1st May 2004 and the adoption of the draft Constitutional Treaty in June 2004, the decision whether or not to begin negotiations on Turkey’s EU accession was the main topic of discussion in the sphere of the policy of European integration in 2004. While hitherto the decision whether or not to begin negotiations with a candidate country depended on respect for the so-called “Copenhagen criteria”, the EU summit in December 2004 decided to start negotiations with Turkey in October 2005, even before having verified whether the criteria had been fulfilled or not. V ARIOUS POSITIONS. CEC and COMECE expressed their position on various occasions on the question of Turkey’s EU bid during 2004, in particular in the CEC document of October 2004 “The relationship of the EU to Turkey” (see the text on www.cec-kek.org), in the meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister, and current President of the European Council in the second semester of 2004, and in the course of the COMECE plenary assembly of November 2004 (www.comece.org). The following points emerge in these various positions: “the accession of Turkey to the EU is not a question of religious differences”, thus contradicting those who pose the element of Islam as an obstacle, also because “Europe is already a multicultural society”; Turkey’s accession, depends rather on the verification of the Copenhagen criteria; the churches, moreover, have “expressed their doubts” whether “religious freedom and the protection of minorities are really respected in Turkey”; and whether, after the accession of the ten new states, “the EU is ready for this entry, in terms of stability and social cohesion”. CHANGED RULES? In a report published by the European Commission on 6 October 2004, appreciation was expressed “for the progress made by Turkey; though identifying 6 legislative fields still to be approved by Turkey, it was affirmed that Turkey sufficiently met the political criteria for negotiations for her accession to be opened”. On this basis the European Parliament adopted its Resolution of 15 December 2004 on the opening of negotiations. In this document, however, it was also affirmed that, although the objective of the negotiations is accession, the process in question would remain open, that its results could not be predetermined, and that, due to the repercussions the accession of any new member state has on the financial position of the EU, the negotiations could not be concluded before 2014. Assurances were also given that, in the event of Turkey’s failure to respect civil liberties and fundamental rights, the Commission could, on its own initiative or at the request of a member state, ask for the suspension of the negotiations. In the CEC-COMECE document it is further emphasised that in the case of Turkey the EU has changed its rules. Whereas before candidate states were required to respect the rules before negotiations were started, “with the decision in December the negotiations can begin even if the process of meeting the political criteria is only “sufficient”. Full respect for the criteria, in other words, is no longer a necessary precondition”. Whether this is an exception or a new method of proceeding in the EU will be seen by the way in which future candidate countries are treated: “the ambitions of the countries of the Western Balkans to enter the EU will be the test bed”. INVOLVING CIVIL SOCIETY. The decision taken by the EU in December also to begin an intensive political and cultural dialogue with the candidate countries is one in which the churches identify their own contribution and scope for action with particular regard to Turkey during this phase. To foster mutual understanding, this dialogue must also involve civil society. To this end, for example, the French churches have pledged to invest in the establishment of new reconciled relations with Turkey and contribute to the birth of a public debate at the grassroots level in Turkey. Apart from this – maintains Metropolitan Atanasios, representative of the Greek patriarchate in Brussels – “the churches should verify that the process takes place in a transparent and correct way: economic interests, and the interests of European markets in Turkey, could condition the process”. At the same time, “everything possible needs to be done to enable Turkey to enter: in this process of ‘europeanization’ the religious minorities see hope”. What is certain is that in the countries contrary to Turkey’s accession, such as France, Greece, or in central Europe, “this debate may complicate the ratification of the Constitutional Treaty”, maintains the secretary of COMECE, Noël Treanor.