US embassy cable - 04BRUSSELS1496

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BRUSSELS 001496 
 
SIPDIS 
 
EUR FOR SCC WESTON 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 04/06/2014 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, KDEM, TU, CY, EUN, USEU BRUSSELS 
SUBJECT: EUR/PDAS RIES DISCUSSIONS WITH EU ON TURKEY'S 
ACCESSION BID 
 
Classified By: USEU External Affairs Officer Andrew Erickson 
for reasons 1.5 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  EUR/PDAS Charlie Ries visited Brussels on 
March 30 to review EU Commission concerns on specific 
Copenhagen Criteria issues, with the aim of working with the 
EU and Turkey to achieve a positive decision on a Turkish 
date for accession negotiations in December.  Matthias Reute, 
DG Enlargement Director for Turkey, Bulgaria, and Romania 
told Ries that there are five specific areas where further 
improvement is needed.  These are the judiciary, protection 
of fundamental freedoms, civil-military relations, enjoyment 
of cultural freedoms, and southeast Turkey.  Ruete reiterated 
that implementation in all areas remains spotty, but 
expressed a general view that the "glass" of Turkish reform 
can increasingly be seen as "half full" as opposed to "half 
empty". 
 
2.  (C) Summary (continued): Ruete specifically requested 
U.S. help in pressuring Turkey to meaningfully reform its 
economy, and to push the GOT hard to ensure civilian control 
of the military.  Ruete (strictly protect) also offered his 
private political assessment of hold-outs against Turkish 
accession. (He included France, the Netherlands, and Austria 
in this group, but also expressed a growing concern about 
Denmark.)  In a subsequent lunch with a wider range of 
interlocutors, Ries reviewed these points, and pushed the EU 
hard on the need to (a) either ensure that the Republic of 
Cyprus votes yes to the Annan Plan; or, (b) not penalize 
Turkey in the event that the ROC blocks a Cyprus settlement 
in the eleventh hour.  End summary. 
 
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"We're here to help" 
-------------------- 
 
3.  (C) EUR/PDAS Charlie Ries visited Brussels on March 30, 
accompanied by US Embassy Ankara Econ Counselor Scot Marciel, 
to review EU Commission concerns on specific Copenhagen 
Political Criteria issues with a view towards offering 
behind-the-scenes U.S. assistance to the GOT in its efforts 
to meet the Copenhagen Criteria.  Ries met for two hours with 
Matthias Reute, EU Commission Director, Pre-Accession, DG 
Enlargement.  Ruete told Ries that there are five specific 
areas where further improvement is needed.  He identified 
these as the judiciary, protection of fundamental freedoms, 
civil-military relations, enjoyment of cultural freedoms, and 
southeast Turkey.  Ruete noted that implementation in all 
areas remains spotty.  (See septel for a specific review of 
concerns addressed in a preparatory working-level meeting on 
March 29.) 
 
4.  (C) Ruete was receptive to Ries' message of U.S. 
willingness to assist with Turkey in ensuring that the 
Copenhagen Political Criteria are met.  He noted that there 
has been a significant change of tone from Turkey since the 
Erdogan government came to power, and this new discourse has 
been welcomed by the European Union.  Ruete said that where 
previously the basis of Turkey's arguments for EU membership 
had been perceived by the Commission to be "you owe us a 
date" the current Turkish government made a more persuasive 
case to the Commission by relying on arguments based upon the 
mutual benefits to the EU and to Turkey that would accrue in 
the event of eventual Turkish accession.  "It's been a silent 
revolution", he told Ries. 
 
5.  (C) Ruete said there continues to be debate in public 
opinion about whether the cup of Turkish reform is half full 
or half empty.  In his view, U.S. assessments of Turkish 
democratic process that focused on "the water level of the 
glass" were a helpful contribution to the internal EU debate; 
overt US pressure on the EU to accede to Turkish demands was 
not.  He cited EU domestic blowback on the State Department's 
annual human rights report as one irritant; the report had 
put his office in a difficult position as many suggested that 
the U.S. was being more critical than the Commission on 
Turkey's human rights record.  While public opinion would 
react negatively to perceived U.S. pressure, positive U.S. 
assessments of Turkish progress on human rights reform would 
be helpful as long as they were not explicitly linked to EU's 
decision in December.  Finally, Ruete noted he sees that "the 
glass is filling up" in terms of Turkey's fulfillment of the 
Copenhagen Criteria.  Challenges nonetheless remain and more 
action was needed. 
 
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Specific Religious & 
Cultural Freedoms 
-------------------- 
 
6.  (C) Ruete noted that a significant difficulty for Turkey 
is that the EU criteria are "soft" to the extent that there 
is no one EU model for Turkey to implement; in fact, there 
are fifteen EU models, and the GOT must find a model of 
religious and cultural freedom that addresses the spirit of 
the EU approach of respect for individual-rights.  This was 
both a challenge for Turkey (because there is no one model to 
implement), and an opportunity (because the GOT can invent a 
model appropriate for Turkey, provide it respects the spirit 
of the EU's rights-based approach).  Ruete added that the 
Council of Europe's guidelines and suggestions could be very 
useful resource for Turkey in this regard. 
 
7.  (C) Ruete's overall critique of the Turkish approach was 
the GOT's need to move from a "statist," authoritarian 
approach, to a mentality respectful of individual liberty. 
Noting that limitations on religious freedom in Turkey remain 
a significant problem, he nonetheless expressed sympathy with 
the GOT argument that increasing the rights of religious 
organizations could open the door to Saudi-financed Wahabbist 
madrassah.  This is in turn could lead to a rise in Islamist 
radicalism in Turkey, the Turks argue.  On the Halki 
Seminary, Ruete noted that the GOT continues to insist that 
it be attached to the religion faculty of the University of 
Istanbul; Ruete was receptive to Ries' idea of exploring a 
compromise that would attach Halki to a private college in 
Istanbul, instead of a government institution.  Reute 
stressed that the treatment of non-Muslim religions was of 
key concern to many of the EU Member States.  Almost a 
quarter of his briefing book for a recent meeting with 
Turkish officials was devoted to this subject. 
 
8.  (C) Ruete was very critical on GOT implementation of 
cultural freedoms.  The area of non-Turkish language 
broadcasting was "one of the government's real defeats" of 
the past few months; the law on non-Turkish language 
broadcasting simply imposed unacceptable burdens on those 
attempting to broadcast in Kurdish.  The broadcasting board 
was also hostile to Kurdish broadcasting, and needed a change 
in personnel (which is reportedly in the works). 
Recalcitrant bureaucrats were also unacceptably stalling 
Kurdish language education.  The GOT was simply not doing 
what it needed to do in this area of reform.  When asked 
whether minority language broadcasting had been an issue in 
the Commission's recommendations on starting accession 
negotiations with Hungary and Romania, Reute said he was not 
sure as this issue had not had the same degree of prominence. 
 
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Of particular concern: civil - 
military relations, the economy 
------------------------------- 
 
9.  (C) Ruete had a broad set of concerns on civil-military 
relations.  The GOT needed to enhance the transparency of the 
military budget, addressing the question of off-budget 
military funding.  It also needed to remove the military 
representatives from the education and audiovisual boards.  A 
GOT appointment of a civilian head of the National Security 
Council this summer would also be helpful.  Ruete added that 
he wasn't sure that "a general can be fired by a civilian"; 
indeed, he was concerned that Turkish generals are not vetted 
by the civilian establishment.  Ruete told Ries that he 
thought that the U.S. could be helpful with the GOT in this 
area in particular, through frank dialogue with Turkish 
officials. 
 
10.  (C) Another key area where the U.S. could be 
influential, Ruete hoped, was the Turkish economy, which 
Ruete characterized as "awful".  In pharmaceuticals, IPR, and 
telecommunications, the GOT was behaving terribly.  On import 
liberalization, Ruete said that the "Turks are behaving like 
the French in the seventies".  Under the circumstances, 
Turkey remained incapable of raising foreign direct 
investment, and this had a negative impact on Turkey's 
accession quest.  "If Turkey's GDP were at sixty percent of 
the EU average, public opinion would be much more favorable 
to Turkish accession", Ruete said.  Economic reform was the 
only way to improve Turkish economic performance. 
 
-------------------- 
Getting to yes - the 
political landscape 
-------------------- 
 
11.  (C) While optimistic about the Commission issuing a 
positive report card on Turkey's fulfillment of the 
Copenhagen Criteria, Ruete warned that the political 
obstacles to a date remain.  "On some member states, very 
clearly, there are big question marks.  Go to Paris, you 
won't find one senior official who won't tell you its crazy 
to begin negotiations.  However they won't say this publicly 
as they are waiting to see what position Chirac will adopt". 
The Netherlands and Austria remain problematic, he said, 
before noting that he was also a "little bit" concerned about 
the trend in Denmark, where an influential official has been 
raising new concerns over torture and ill treatment of 
prisoners.  He was more sanguine about Germany; in his view, 
the opposition would change its position once in power.  The 
question for Germany was whether Germany wants 
"German-speaking Turkish engineers or English-speaking Indian 
engineers" to address its long-term demographic gap. 
Finally, Ruete was confident that the new accession states 
would be favorable for a date. 
 
----------------- 
Annan Plan Impact 
----------------- 
 
12.  (C) In a subsequent lunch with a wide range of EU 
officials dealing with Turkey and Cyprus, Ries reviewed these 
points, and pushed the EU hard on the need to (a) either 
ensure that the Republic of Cyprus votes yes to the Annan 
Plan; and to, (b) not penalize Turkey in the event that the 
ROC blocks a Cyprus settlement in the eleventh hour.  Ries 
suggested a number of ways that the EU could actively 
campaign for a "yes" vote in the south, and heard EU 
interlocutors add some ideas of their own, including high 
level statements of support from Greek and EU political 
leaders, joint visits to the island on the eve of the 
elections, and a clear message to the Greek Cypriots that 
there would be consequences to a no vote.  Reute offered the 
argument that a settlement would statistically decrease 
Cyprus' per capita GDP making the island as a whole, and the 
Greek Cypriot south, eligible for a greater share of EU 
structural funds.   Interlocutors were divided on the 
consequences to Turkey's accession quest of a no vote on the 
Annan Plan by the south; it was generally agreed, however, 
that a no vote would have a negative impact on Turkey's 
candidacy.  Ries pushed back hard on this point, saying that 
it would be unacceptable for the international community to 
punish Turkey for the Greek Cypriots' failure to accept a 
peace plan. 
Foster