What happened in Luxembourg on Monday?

Friday, June 16, 2006

Turkish Daily News

The Republic of Cyprus, apparently with the tacit help of Greece, demanded that the European Union refer to the ratification and implementation of the customs union additional protocol in the Common Negotiation Position at the Intergovernmental Conference where the chapter on Science and Research was to be opened. Cengiz Aktar
The Republic of Cyprus, apparently with the tacit help of Greece, demanded that the European Union refer to the ratification and implementation of the customs union additional protocol in the Common Negotiation Position at the Intergovernmental Conference where the chapter on Science and Research was to be opened.
With impatience stemming from its oriental ways, it laid its cards on the table too early and caused a quarrel. Indeed, the content of this chapter, science and research, has nothing to do with, for example, the opening of the port of Mersin to ships from the Republic of Cyprus. Some said this initiative was due to the departing Foreign Minister Yakovu's desire to be noted in history books. At the end of the day, the unworkable demands of the Greek Cypriots were pushed aside with a vague formula.
However, this was also an indication of things to come concerning the negotiations. The Republic of Cyprus will continue to seek revenge on Turkey, which is its sole foreign policy objective, throughout this process. While the preparation of the European Commission's report on progress on the addition protocol may be postponed for a year, as some suggest, there are many chapters that are directly or indirectly linked to the customs union. The formula found on Monday for the chapter on Science and Research may not be found when the time comes to open these chapters, and this may result in Cyprus succeeding in preventing their opening or closure.

Dismissing Cyprus's ability to wreak havoc:
Ankara's stance over the meaning and importance of European Union member Republic of Cyprus is truly far from realistic. Firstly, one should never dismiss EU member the Republic of Cyprus's ability to wreak havoc. This country, which has the right to vote, can find another field in which it can make up for its failure to obtain the support of other members on its anti-Turkey policies. This is highly likely at a time when the EU is in such a weak state, as it is now. They, for instance, had vetoed the aid allocated to three Caucasian countries as part of the New Neighborhood Policy just to punish Azerbaijan, which had landed a plane on the northern part of the island.
Secondly, Turkish officials often used the argument that saying “Will you choose Cyprus with a population of 700,000 over 70 million-strong Turkey?” implies that small countries need to tow the line of larger ones and that this bitterly angers smaller EU members.

Actual negotiations through factual work:
On the other hand, a nonsensical concept that was never used by any other candidate country has been created, and that is “actual negotiations.” The actual negotiations started with the screening process. What started on Monday can at most be called “opening of the chapter.” After years of dismissing the screening process, which is the first stage of the negotiations and determines the opening of the chapter, such an approach had to be expected. Also, “actual negotiations” tend to imply that real and intense bargaining is taking place, which is unfortunately far from true. Candidate countries should approve almost the entire EU acquis communautaire. The negotiations, or the bargaining, are over the time it takes to implement various binding regulations of the acquis. And in order to ask for transitory periods, independent impact analyses need to be made. There is no such effort on our part.
As long as Turkey is trying to integrate with the EU and as long as Cyprus is a member state, the Cyprus issue will always be there. Just like we have been saying for months, what we need to do is fulfill all the requirements of harmonization and thereby lessen the impact of the Cyprus issue. For example, on the temporarily closed Science and Research chapter, we need to reach an agreement with the EU commissioner in charge, Mr. Potocnik, for our contribution to the “Seventh Framework Program (FP) on Research” as soon as possible. Because if no agreement is reached, and Turkey is kept out of the Seventh FP, the chapter on Science and Research could be reopened.
The Cyprus issue has currently taken hostage not only Turkey's EU negotiation process but also Turkish-EU relations. Neither us nor the EU can see the real substance and importance of the process due to the time wasted on the issue.