European Union Membership Turkey Turkish Minorities

From its establishment, the European Union presented potential members with the possibility of economic development through its single market economy that many countries have found attractive, encouraging their accession. Beyond the economic aspect, the European Union could bring together countries that share a similar set of democratic values in order to provide its members with enhanced security. Since the beginning of the European Union, Turkey has expressed a keen interest in this integration process and has eventually began the membership application. However, Turkey has encountered many impediments throughout the progression of their application, resulting in a stand still. Although they have signed numerous agreements with the European Union, have undergone several positive development and full-membership has often been alluded to, Turkey remains an outsider to European unity. The topic of Turkey membership is likely to continue as a contentious topic on the agenda of the European Union, as Turkey has failed to fully undertake the necessary reformations to their institutions and actions that would render them as a legitimate European Union member-state. Though accession negotiations have been initiated, this paper will argue that Turkey’s aggressive foreign policy and actions towards Greece, its evolution into an authoritarian government, the resulting human rights violations and the implications for the Middle East if accepted will prevent its accession into the European Union.

Turkish nationalism was a latecomer to the Ottoman lands. Defensive in nature, it aimed to deter the disintegration of the Empire at the hands of the Great Powers and the minority groups which had already endorsed nationalist ideals. When this target proved unrealistic, it aimed at the formation of a strong Turkish nation-state. Under the leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, it proved successful in that aim. The abolition of the Caliphate and the proclamation of the Republic of Turkey in 1923 launched a rigorous nation-building campaign. The need for national unity and cohesion required an intensive programme of national homogenization. As the large Ottoman non-Muslim populations of Anatolia had been reduced to a numerically insignificant minority by 1923, nation-building efforts could only focus on the Muslim majority of the population. Every Muslim citizen of the Republic, regardless of his ethnic origins, was invited – and obliged – to adopt the republican Turkish national identity. There was no room for separate ethnic or religious groups. Kurdish, Alevi or any other group identities were persistently denied by the state. These efforts were intensified in the aftermath of the 1925 Kurdish insurrection led by Sheikh Said in south-eastern Turkey. The most famous of the measures was a campaign named ‘“Vatandaş, Türkçe konuş!”–“Citizen, speak Turkish!”’. This was launched in 1928 aiming to impose the universal use of Turkish by all minorities, while a series of additional measures aimed to further advance national homogenization. Preventing the formation of villages by non-Turkish-speaking refugees, resettling small groups of non-Turkish-speaking populations in Turkish-speaking villages, emphasizing the honour and benefits of being a Turk and speaking Turkish were all tools in a state effort to bring about the Turkification of Anatolian Kurds, Arabs, Circassians, Laz, Albanians, Roma and other Muslim ethnic groups. Non-Muslims were accepted as separate ethnic groups, but for that very reason, their citizenship rights were often questioned. The denial of the existence of any minorities other than the Istanbul Armenians, Greeks and Jews, which in turn faced persistent discrimination, became one of the cornerstones of Turkish minority policy.3 This nation-building programme met with considerable success until the rise of the Kurdish question in the late 1970s questioned its fundamental premises. Severe repressive measures throughout the 1980s and 1990s did not seem to offer a long-lasting solution; on the contrary, they further alienated Turkey's Kurdish population from the Turkish state. It also reinforced the appeal of the Kurdish Workers' Party (Partiya Karkaren Kurdistan – PKK), a Kurdish secessionist group that had launched guerrilla warfare and terrorist attacks in south-eastern Turkey since the late 1970s.
This study will first focus on the recent reform of minority rights legislation, which was influenced by Turkey's efforts to meet the Copenhagen Criteria4 and start accession negotiations with the European Union. It will then explore a report of a state-affiliated committee, which was prepared in the context of this reform process and sparked a heated and interesting discussion on the reconsideration of Turkish national identity. It will be argued in this study that the suggestion to introduce a new civic Turkish national identity based on citizenship of the Republic of Turkey (Türkiyeli) – instead of the current ethnic one (Türk) – bears strong similarities with the civic identity sponsored by Ottomanism in the late Ottoman era. While Ottomanism attempted to co-opt Ottoman non-Muslim minorities, it is now Turkey's Kurds whose concerns the report is mainly trying to address. Nonetheless, the historic failure of Ottomanism cannot be considered as a clear sign that this new attempt to develop a novel civic national identity in Turkey would fail. The prospect of Turkey's EU membership and the anchor role of the European Union in Turkey's political reform programme create conditions that may assist in the future redefinition of Turkish identity on more liberal and inclusive lines.

It_has been around 50 years since Turkey has begun its EU membership story (Paul, 2012, p.25). As it is well known, this situation has made this membership process arguable for both Turkey and EU. There are many contentious topics that play role on the process of membership, such as geography, politic, economy, history, culture, and religion. It seems these topics are also barriers of the membership of Turkey, and it is going to continue to be barriers for a long time. Additionally, there are progress reports that ask for more improvements from Turkey in this context.[1] Also, domestic, and international crisis around Turkey has made EU members pessimistic about the membership of Turkey. These topics are closely related to these incidents as well.

In this study, it is going to be focused how contentious topics like geography, politic, economy, history, culture, and religion effects Turkish EU membership process. Each topic will be analyzed under separated chapters, and it will be shown that these topics are barriers for the membership of Turkey.