13 November 2003

Speakers: Mario Zucconi, University of Siena
 Alessandro Silj, Director, Ethnobarometer Project
Discussant: Bahadir Kaleagasi, Representative to the EU and UNICE, Turkish Industry & Business Association (TUSIAD)
Chair: Michael Emerson, Senior Research Fellow, CEPS

Professor Mario Zucconi presented the findings from his report "Turkey’s New Politics and the European Union," a working paper written for the Rome-based Ethnobarometer research network. This working paper, published in April 2003 and number seven in the series, is the second by Ethnobarometer devoted to Turkey.

In his opening remarks, Professor Zucconi noted that much has changed in relations between the EU and Turkey in the last year. After a great deal of concern following the electoral success of the AK (Justice and Development) Party and fear about the rise of political Islam, he claims that Turkish politicians are now lobbying EU officials in preparation for the December 2004 Regular Report on the progress of Turkish reforms, and are receiving positive reviews in the European press.

Although Professor Zucconi appreciates the apparent effectiveness of the benchmarks for political reform set by the EU Commission, he feels that a broader analytical framework for studying reform in Turkey is necessary. Specifically, rather than focusing on the results of individual reforms, he feels that ’process’ should be given greater attention. The two main factors he sees in Turkey’s new politics, following the rise of political Islam in the 1990s, are the effect of outside influences on Turkish politics and the evolution of Turkish politics, with political Islam at its centre. In Professor Zucconi’s view, these two factors are two parts of one process.

He sees the beginning of Turkey’s new politics in the urbanisation which picked up under the Ozal years of the 1990s. This, with the promotion of Islamic education, paradoxically, by the Turkish military after the coup in 1980--to promote religion as a barrier to communism--changed the political landscape of Turkey and allowed for the development of a viable Islamic party there.
The Refah party, elected in 1995, with its anti-European policies, should not be confused with the AKP, elected in 2002. Professor Zucconi sees a marked discontinuity between Refah and the AKP resulting from the evolution of younger Islamist politicians who accepted the universalist ideals of human rights espoused by the EU. Turkey’s new politics, therefore, are more willing to change and more receptive to influences from the outside.
Professor Zucconi, therefore, feels that it is now necessary to take advantage of the historic opportunity to influence Turkish politics by starting the process of negotiation for EU accession. The process of negotiation will take advantage of the openness of Turkey’s new politics to influences from the outside, and thereby further the process of political evolution. It is Turkey’s ability to change, rather than the success of individual reforms, which should be the focus of EU policies towards Turkey.