US embassy cable - 05ANKARA1074

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ANKARA 001074 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/28/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, PHUM, TU 
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S EU CANDIDACY ADRIFT 
 
REF: ANKARA 776 
 
Classified By: Classified by Polcouns John Kunstadter; reasons 1.4 b an 
d d. 
 
1. (C) Summary: Ankara-based European diplomats confirm our 
assessment that Turkey's EU candidacy remains adrift more 
than two months after the EU decided at the December Summit 
to set a date for accession negotiations.  PM Erdogan has yet 
to name a lead EU negotiator, and since the Summit has 
traveled extensively to countries outside the EU.  The EU, 
meanwhile, has postponed two upcoming reports related to 
Turkey's accession to avoid any significant action prior to 
the French referendum on the EU Constitution.  EU contacts in 
Ankara say Turkey's "screening" process will begin in 
October, the official start of negotiations, despite GOT 
arguments that screening should begin sooner.  European 
diplomats expect accession negotiations to begin on schedule, 
but say the GOT's aggressive approach to the Summit indicates 
the road ahead will be rough.  A Turkish MFA contact asserted 
that the EU will have to adopt a more supportive approach if 
the negotiations are to succeed.  End Summary. 
 
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EU Diplomats See Lost Momentum 
------------------------------ 
 
2. (C) Ankara-based European diplomats note to us that more 
than two months after the Summit, the GOT has yet to name a 
lead EU negotiator or to organize the state bureaucracy in 
preparation to begin the process of adopting the 80,000-page 
EU aquis.  Ambassador Kretschmer, head of the European 
Commission Representation to Turkey, expressed concern in the 
February 27 Turkish press that the GOT has made no progress 
on EU accession since the Summit.  Following the Summit 
success, our diplomatic contacts point out, PM Erdogan has 
been traveling extensively -- but generally not to EU states. 
 Instead, he has visited South Asia, Russia, Albania, and 
Bosnia, and leaves for Africa March 1.  Our Eurocontacts 
claim they remain confident that the next phase of the 
accession process will begin as planned, but, as Stephen 
McCormick of the UK Embassy put it, "Momentum has been lost. 
I hope (Erdogan) hasn't lost interest in the EU." 
 
3. (U) The EU, for its part, has also delayed a number of 
items on the accession agenda.  The European Commission has 
rebuffed GOT efforts to begin the "screening" process before 
October 3, the official start of the accession talks.  The 
Commission has also postponed the scheduled release dates for 
the Framework for Negotiations, a document that will spell 
out in detail how the negotiations will be conducted, and the 
Accession Partnership Agreement, which will provide general 
guidance for steps Turkey must take to make further progress 
toward the Copenhagen Criteria for human rights and 
democracy.  Moreover, Enlargement Commissioner Rehn has 
repeatedly pushed back his planned visit to Turkey, now set 
for March.  Contacts say these delays were caused largely by 
French insistence that the Commission take no significant 
action on Turkey until after the planned French resolution on 
the EU constitution. 
 
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"Screening" to Start In October 
------------------------------- 
 
4. (C) Screening is a process under which the European 
Commission and the applicant state compare national 
legislation with EU requirements for all 35 aquis chapters. 
The two sides identify areas to be addressed during accession 
talks, and separate "easy" chapters, requiring relatively 
less work to bring national legislation into EU conformity, 
from "hard" ones.  GOT officials initially maintained after 
the Summit that screening should begin immediately and be 
completed before October, arguing that Turkey has already 
been working with the Commission on elements of the aquis 
and, as a long-standing Customs Union member, already met EU 
standards in a number of areas. 
 
5. (C) At one point, Commissioner Rehn stated publicly that 
screening for Turkey would begin this summer.  However, 
Martin Dawson, head of the Political Section at the European 
Commission's Representation to Turkey, told us the French 
Government strongly opposed the idea, causing the Commission 
to abandon it.  Dawson said the Commission has made clear to 
the GOT that it considers screening to be the first phase of 
the accession negotiations, not a separate, preparatory 
activity.  The EU in December made a political decision to 
start in October, and the Commission cannot take action 
before that date.  Dawson said the EU is not treating Turkey 
differently from past candidates -- although some applicant 
states began screening in advance of the official start of 
accession negotiations, most did not.  Contacts at the 
Turkish MFA say they accept the Commission's position, though 
they are not entirely happy with it. 
 
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"Framework" Will Spell Out Process 
---------------------------------- 
 
6. (C) The Commission has not officially determined whether 
the EU and GOT must complete screening for all 35 aquis 
chapters before the next phase of negotiations can begin. 
Dawson said the Commission will most likely break the 
chapters into blocks of 2-4, beginning accession negotiations 
on an individual block after the block has been screened, 
while simultaneously continuing to screen remaining blocks. 
McCormick also expected the Commission to take this approach, 
and said the UK will object if a slower process is proposed. 
Past practice is a poor guide -- the Commission has used a 
variety of approaches with previous candidates.  The issue 
should be clarified in the Framework for Negotiations, which 
the Commission expects to introduce in June.  McCormick said 
it could take until September, just before the start of 
talks, for member states to approve the document. 
 
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EU, GOT Foresee Bumpy Road Ahead 
-------------------------------- 
 
7. (C) Both Turkish and European contacts say they are still 
feeling the effects of the bruising Summit negotiations, and 
they predict the road ahead will be bumpy.  Willemijn Van 
Haaften, political officer at the Dutch Embassy, said the 
Turkish approach to the Summit violated EU traditions of 
consensus and compromise.  She said EU officials were 
irritated with the way the GOT haggled over the draft Summit 
conclusions, something candidate states are technically not 
permitted to do.  "No one else has ever even thought of 
trying that," she said.  "They have no idea how much ill will 
they created."  What's worse, she said, is that the EU 
yielded to the GOT on some points, virtually ensuring that 
the EU will face similar tactics in the future.  McCormick 
said not all EU states were as upset by the GOT's tactics as 
the Dutch, who bore the brunt of the pressure as term 
president.  But he acknowledged that Erdogan's "blunt" style 
clashes with EU decorum.  Thomas Bagger, political and press 
counselor at the German Embassy, said that even the members 
of the pro-Turkey German delegation at the Summit "will be 
happy not to see the Turks again for a while."  The European 
diplomats agreed the GOT will run into a brick wall if it 
tries to haggle with the Commission over the aquis.  The 
aquis, they say, leaves minimal room for flexibility on the 
EU side, and Commission bureaucrats, unlike heads of state, 
will not hesitate to say "no" to the Turks, even if the GOT 
threatens to walk away from the talks. 
 
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MFA Official Calls for New EU Attitude on Turkey 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
8. (C) Ali Kemal Aydin, department head at the MFA Deputy 
Directorate General for EU Affairs, made it clear that he 
believes success in the accession process will require a 
"change in attitude" on the EU side no less than on the 
Turkish side.  Aydin noted that France is changing its 
Constitution to require a national referendum on future EU 
member states -- an amendment specifically aimed at Turkey. 
If other member states follow suit, "Turks might tell the EU 
to go to hell," he said.  Aydin averred that Turkey is being 
treated with more skepticism than other candidates.  The EU 
actively helped previous applicants, such as the Baltic 
states, to meet the criteria.  But when it comes to Turkey, 
the EU is constantly dragging its feet and criticizing. 
Aydin said the GOT is irritated with the EU states for doing 
nothing to change the behavior of Cyprus, which has 
consistently pressured Turkey to recognize the ROC and vetoed 
EU trade and assistance proposals aimed at the TRNC.  Noting 
that the EU had no trouble sanctioning Austria when Joerg 
Haidar's controversial right-wing party entered the 
government, he averred that the EU states refuse to take a 
similar stand against Cyprus because they are secretly 
pleased to see Cyprus provoking Turkey.  "At this point, they 
should treat us as part of the family," he said.  "I don't 
think they will." 
----------------------------- 
UK Contact Remains Optimistic 
----------------------------- 
 
9. (C) McCormick acknowledged there is some truth to such GOT 
views.  Turkey inspires less enthusiasm, and more anxiety, 
among EU members than any previous candidate.  Moreover, the 
EU, learning from past mistakes, has toughened its approach 
to enlargement.  While in the past the EU accepted a stated 
commitment from applicant states to implement the required 
legal reforms, from now on it will require evidence of 
implementation.  Still, he claims to be optimistic.  The path 
to accession for Turkey will be rough, but the journey will 
change Turkey.  In the end, he predicted, Turkey will become 
more European, and Europe will get used to the idea. 
 
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Comment 
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10. (C) After coming to power in November 2002, the ruling AK 
Party (AKP) tightly focused its agenda on the short-term 
effort to earn a date for EU accession talks, generally 
keeping a lid on other issues.  Since the December Summit, 
the party has been struggling to gain a new foothold. 
Erdogan has engaged in confusing, unfocused foreign policy 
efforts, and at the Davos World Economic Forum he clumsily 
raised the controversial headscarf issue, which he had been 
cautiously avoiding prior to the Summit (reftel).  His 
failure to name a lead EU negotiator is part of a larger 
inability to carry out a widely anticipated cabinet 
re-shuffle. 
 
11. (C) The long, bureaucratic process of EU accession will 
require a much different GOT approach than the highly 
political campaign for a negotiation date.  Accession will 
take at least 10 years, far longer than the AKP leadership 
can postpone the emergence of issues like headscarves that 
are important to the party's base.  These issues will pit the 
AKP against the secular establishment, in a clash that could 
make European observers nervous.  The success of the next 
phase of EU succession will depend on AKP's ability to adjust 
to these new realities and to handle the nuts and bolts of 
harmonization efficiently.  In this latter regard, we are 
concerned by the recent retirement of Saadet Arikan, the 
Justice Ministry DG for legal harmonization and one of the 
very few Turkish bureaucrats with a realistic sense of what 
the EU and EU accession mean.  In our past two meetings with 
her she had expressed concern at the low quality and Islamist 
perspective of people being installed by the AKP government 
in her Ministry. 
EDELMAN