ИПИ Библиотека

Many Turks heaved a sigh of relief in December 2004, when EU leaders declared that Turkey could start accession negotiations in October 2005. Some 40 years after the EU had first opened up the prospect of membership, that goal finally appeared to be within reach. Yet as the opening of those accession talks approaches, the mood in Turkey is decidedly sombre. The EU is preoccupied with its own internal problems, following the collapse of its constitutional treaty and bitter rows over the EU budget. Recent polls show that a majority of West Europeans are now against Turkish membership. Germany’s likely next chancellor, and most of the plausible candidates for France’s presidential elections, are openly arguing for a ‘privileged partnership’ instead of full EU membership. Meanwhile, reforms within Turkey have slowed, and the Turkish public is becoming less enthusiastic about EU accession. One thing is clear: Turkish accession will be a long and often difficult journey. And it is only just beginning.
Turkey has made tremendous progress in addressing the EU’s political requirements, but very few
people in Turkey realise that to join the EU they will have to adopt tens of thousands of pages of EU laws and regulations, and align their policies with the EU in areas stretching from maritime safety to debt relief in Africa. Grabbe argues that the Turkish government should redouble its efforts to explain to the country’s people and businesses what accession is really about. She also advises the Turks to study the EU’s last round of enlargement – which brought ten countries into the EU in May 2004 – carefully: it offers valuable lessons on how to manage the negotiations and sustain public support for EU accession

“On the EU side, public hostility remains the principal obstacle to Turkish accession. Some commentators and politicians claim that the Noes in the French and Dutch referenda on the constitutional treaty were really a rejection of Turkish accession. However, when Eurobarometer asked the French after their referendum why they voted Non, only 6 per cent cited Turkey as the reason.”

Heather Grabbe

Heather Grabbe is director of the Open Society Institute - Brussels and director of EU affairs for the Soros network. From 2004–2009 she was senior advisor to European Commissioner for Enlargement Olli Rehn, responsible in his cabinet for the Balkans and Turkey. Before joining the commission, she was deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, the London-based think-tank, where she published widely on EU enlargement and other European issues.

Her academic career includes teaching at the London School of Economics, and research at Oxford and Birmingham universities, the Royal Institute for International Affairs (Chatham House, London) and the European University Institute (Florence). Grabbe has a PhD from Birmingham University and a BA and MA from Oxford University.

Katinka Barysch

Katinka Barysch is the deputy director of the Centre for European Reform, an independent London-based think-tank devoted to making the European Union work better and strengthen its role in the world. Katinka has written extensively about Russia, Turkey, Central and Eastern Europe and about all aspects EU enlargement. She also works on European economic reforms, globalisation, energy questions and EU institutional change. Katinka has acted as an advisor to the EU Select Committee of the House of Lords, the World Economic Forum and other organisations, as well as EU governments and a number of financial institutions and business federations.

She regularly comments on European developments in the media, and she was twice nominated for the Rybczynski Prize of economic writing by the Society of Business Economists. Katinka joined the CER in July 2002. Before that, she was an analyst and editor for the Economist Intelligence Unit in London, specialising in Eastern Europe and Russia. Until 1998, she worked as a consultant in Brussels, where she was also involved in formulating the European Commission's strategy towards the East European candidate countries. Katinka gained an MSc in International Political Economy with distinction from the London School of Economics and a BA in Political Science, Economics and Law from Munich 

Steven Everts

Dr. Steven Everts joined the Centre for European Reform in April 1999. He is the Director of the CER's transatlantic programme which covers the full range of US-European relations (foreign and security policy, trade issues plus financial and economic co-operation).

His own research focuses on trends in EU foreign policy, both in terms of the policies the EU should pursue and the institutional reforms that are necessary to make the EU a more influential global actor. How to maintain a close and constructive partnership with the US is another, increasingly important dimension of his work. Together with Charles Grant, he was the winner in May 2003 of the $10,000 essay competition organised by the Foreign Policy Association on the topic of 'The US and Europe: Transatlantic Drift or Common Destiny?'.

Steven has been the author of numerous articles on EU issues in leading European and North American publications, including Survival, the World Policy Journal, Internationale Politik and the International Spectator. He has written many articles for the Financial Times, the International Herald Tribune, the Wall Street Journal, die Sueddeutsche Zeiting and NRC/Handelsblad. Steven holds a PhD in International Relations from Oxford University and an MA in Political Science from Leiden University in the Netherlands.