• Powerful conservative trends  - Roberto Aliboni
The constitution's rejection concerns less external policies toward MENA than internal ones.

• With Turkey, Europe may thwart al-Qaeda  - Soner Cagaptay
Unless Europe takes the right steps, it risks having a population crystallized along Christian-Muslim lines.

• Is the EU truly in crisis?  - Ahmet O. Evin
The issue of Turkish membership could be turned into a positive challenge.

• A failure of confidence  - an interview withCharles Shamas
A lot of Europe's malaise comes from the lack of a coherent EU common foreign and security policy.

Powerful conservative trends
 Roberto Aliboni

The disruption of the European constitution's ratification process unveiled a wider political crisis in the European Union. This crisis stems from factors as diverse as the decline of the transatlantic link--despite its enduring strategic value in EU eyes--and European ambiguities in responding to pressures deriving from globalization. More generally, there is a dwindling sense of the role the EU plays with respect to both daily life and destiny.

How would the failure to endorse the constitution affect EU policies toward the Middle East and North Africa?

First of all, the whole of EU foreign policy would be broadly affected because the constitution is largely intended to improve the institutions and instruments of the EU Common Foreign and Security Policy. In fact, it is expected to provide two fundamental institutional inputs: a manageable decision-making institutional mechanism in a now-crowded membership; and a significant upgrading of institutions and instruments dealing precisely with foreign policy. Its rebuff would be a serious blow to EU foreign policy capabilities, in particular at a time when bold decisions and interventions are required, especially in neighboring areas like the Balkans, the Black Sea, North Africa and the Levant, as well as in the more or less greater Middle East.

No doubt, EU policies toward Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, regional economic and political reforms, the Mediterranean, Iran and the Gulf Cooperation Council would fade. The inclusion of Turkey in the Union--indirectly linked to the Arab-Muslim world--would also be affected.

Second, the European Constitution is being rejected by European people either because it fails to provide convincing responses to the major factors of crisis mentioned above or because it provides responses that are out of tune with deep trends in European public opinion. When it comes to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), political aspects are probably even more significant than institutional ones. In fact, among the complex reasons that have led people to reject the constitution, relations with Islam and immigration play a crucial role. There is no doubt that the liberal perspective underlying the constitution, with its refusal to include the notion of EU "Christian roots" and its broad trend toward further liberalization and inclusiveness with respect to people and countries, sounds frightening or unconvincing to many Europeans.

In this respect, what the constitution's rejection would entail for EU policymakers concerns less external policies toward MENA than internal ones. European people are asking for more security with respect to legal and illegal immigration, mostly Arab and Muslim, in Europe. The rationalist approach toward inter-civilizational issues adopted by the constitution fails to convince many Europeans. The attitude of the newly-elected Catholic pope, ostensibly very much engaged against the egalitarian simplifications brought about by secular rationalist approaches, shows how powerful conservative trends in today's Europe are.

The mainstream message coming from European conservatism stresses the necessity of limiting Muslim influence, if not presence. Certainly it is squarely against multiculturalism. More than that, it says that Muslims have to integrate European customs much more than Europeans have to recognize Muslim customs. Leaving aside the most extreme xenophobic groups, the large majority of Europeans ask for a more regulatory approach toward immigration, be it integrationist (the left) or exclusivist (the right).

If a tighter regulatory policy is to be established, an integrationist approach would definitely be more desirable and far-sighted than an exclusivist one. Several factors, though, suggest that the balance tilts toward exclusivist policies. First, there is strong disagreement among EU members about immigration as well as related issues, such as citizenship, asylum, and so forth. The constitution is liberal in its overall approach, yet it does not point to a clear immigration policy. A liberal constitution that does not specify policies because of inter-governmental disagreement creates a need for reassurance. In this sense, it may easily foster a conservative EU response to immigration and civilizational dialogue with MENA.

The July 7 terrorist attack in London is certainly going to reinforce conservative tendencies in the EU. Europe will focus its policies toward the Arab and Islamic world on what the EU calls optimistically "justice, freedom and security space" and the Americans will focus, more prosaically, on "homeland security"--meaning immigration and terrorism, with strong linkages between the two. The London attack, seemingly carried out by Muslim British citizens of Pakistani origin in connection with people in Arab-Muslim areas, easily confirmed to Europeans that the threat derives primarily from within, and has first of all to be tackled domestically, with foreign policies playing a complementary role with respect to domestic ones.

A particular casualty of the conservative trend unveiled by the European Constitution's rejection might be the inclusion of Turkey in the EU. Despite the fact that Turkey has taken remarkable steps forward in democratizing its regime in tune with EU requests, it was abundantly targeted in the French and Dutch referendum campaigns. Turkey's EU membership was also a factor in the debate about "Christian roots" that characterized preparation of the text of the constitution.

Thus the prevailing trend in Europe is apparently a strongly conservative one that complicates problems without solving them. At the end of the day, what is probably lacking in Europe is a leadership able to assert "secular rationalist approaches" that might guide Europeans out of their fear and blindness.- Published 21/7/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org


Roberto Aliboni is director of the Mediterranean and Middle East Programme, International Affairs Institute-IAI, Rome and senior research adviser, European Institute of the Mediterranean-IEMed, Barcelona.

In the aftermath of the recent bombings in London, Turkey's European Union accession, lately thrown into doubt, has become an issue of cosmic importance for Europe. Here is why.

The appalling crimes in London and the subsequent revelation that the bombers were a cell of British Muslims of Pakistani origin indicate that what happened in Madrid on March 3, 2004, was not an isolated incident. Rather, there is a pattern emerging whereby al-Qaeda is using terror acts by radical Muslims in Europe to create resentment against the larger Muslim community in the EU--the second largest and fastest growing religious group inside the union. Moreover, the firebombing of mosques and harassment of British Muslims in the aftermath of the London attacks--episodes also witnessed after the slaying of Dutch film director Theo Van Gogh by North African Islamists--indicate that Europeans are prone to extracting justice from local Muslims in response to al-Qaeda's crimes.

With every additional al-Qaeda attack, Europeans will only become angrier and will continue seeking vengeance. This will further alienate Muslims living in the EU--already a poorly integrated and marginalized community in most European countries. Therefore, what looms on the horizon for Europe is a home-grown Islamist insurgency compounded by acts of violence against local Muslims.

Unless Europe takes the right steps, it risks having a population crystallized along Christian-Muslim lines. This would be an al-Qaeda victory. Fighting terror effectively is one way of preventing this scenario. Making those Muslims living in EU countries, especially those committed to European values, feel welcome on the continent is another. Here is where Turkey comes in. If the EU treats Turkey's EU accession with fairness, European Muslims will feel that they are indeed welcome.

That attitude has not been the case lately. Even though the EU recently invited Turkey to accession negotiations, and despite the fact that all previous accession talks have resulted in EU membership offers, upcoming European leaders from Angela Merkel in Germany to Nicholas Sarkozy in France are saying Turkey will never become an EU member.

These attitudes are raising the membership bar higher for Turkey than for other applicant states despite the fact that Ankara has already done at least as much as some of the EU's new Eastern European members to qualify for accession. Recently, the EU said that Ankara will have to go through separate rounds of negotiations for each of the 35 "chapters" to be addressed in the accession talks, while other candidate countries have addressed all chapters in a single round of talks.

How will Turkey's skewed accession process affect EU-Muslim relations? Once Ankara begins negotiations, a new discipline of "comparative accession talks" will emerge in Turkey, leading to a perception that the EU is treating Turkey unfairly due to its religion.

This feeling will drive a wedge between the EU and Ankara. In the post-September 11 world, Turkey sits precariously on a fence between the West and the Muslim countries. The Iraq war in particular has created feelings of solidarity between Ankara and its Muslim neighbors. If Turkey receives a cold shoulder from Europe at a time when US-Turkish relations are in the doldrums, the Turks may well turn toward the East.

Even worse, if Muslims in Europe perceive the European Union as discriminating against Turkey, they will conclude that there is no place for them on the continent, regardless of how European they become.

It will take years for a majority of Europeans to wake up to the wisdom of letting Ankara into the Union and see that Turkey provides Europe with an opportunity to bridge the chasm that al-Qaeda wants to expand. Until then, populist politicians will try to squash Ankara's membership prospects in hopes of cashing in on public resistance to the idea of a Muslim EU country. In doing so they will miss the point that Turks are the "western Muslims" best suited for EU membership, having two centuries of westernization, 80 years of secular government, six decades of multi-party democracy, a tradition of tolerant Islam, and Ataturk's legacy of equality between men and women solidly under their belt.

Europe faces a serious decision on Turkey. It can either thwart al-Qaeda's tactics by moving ahead with Turkish accession, or it can help al-Qaeda accomplish its goal of dividing Europe. Turkey's EU accession is not a mere technical issue--it is a political choice that the EU must make. For Europe's sake, better sooner than later.- Published 21/7/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Soner Cagaptay is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Hale Arifagaoglu is a research assistant at the Institute and Cansin Ersoz was a research intern at the Institute in 2009-2010.

Following the rejection by the French and Dutch voters of the constitutional treaty, Europe was thrown into a state of confusion and doubt, although the results of both referenda, predicted earlier, were hardly surprising. Without the new constitution, its proponents argued, further European Union enlargement would be difficult, if not impossible, to achieve; pessimistic observers went so far as to suggest that Europe might not be governable, or even viable, without the streamlined decision-making procedures foreseen in the constitution. As a result, prospects for Turkey's full membership are also claimed to have faded, despite protestations to the contrary from the Commission.

Two interrelated questions emerge from these gloomy scenarios. First, is there a good reason to be alarmed about the state of the EU? And second, will Turkey lose its chance for full membership in the wake of the current loss of confidence in Europe?

To begin with the first: the so-called crisis has less to do with the EU itself than with the domestic politics of some of its member states that have been suffering from economic underperformance. The French and Dutch referenda reflect an increased emphasis on national priorities rather than dissatisfaction with the way in which the EU itself is governed.

Contrary to the perceived state of EU over-reach, enlargement has helped the Union's economy, as reflected by the substantially higher rates of growth of the 10 new members. Nor has the EU lost its attraction for candidate countries as well as future hopefuls in its neighborhood.

What is perceived to be the EU crisis appears to reflect crises of leadership in many of the member states, where the leaders (responsible for decisions taken on an intergovernmental basis) fail to inform their national constituencies about the EU and to share a vision of how that entity would be capable of enhancing collective interests. On the other hand, short-term populist considerations on the national political level, such as resisting globalization for the sake of protecting domestic labor markets, carry the danger of serious economic crises that would threaten the very basis of the post-war European success story.

Parochialism of national politics also seems to get in the way of obtaining a clear perspective on Turkey's membership. A persistent lack of familiarity, compounded by the alien image of the Turk and the resulting inability to imagine Turkey as part of Europe (although Turkey is a member of all European institutions except the EU), is often camouflaged behind the more objective-sounding arguments (such as the country's size, level of economic development, costs to the EU of its integration) that are commonly made against Turkish membership, even as accession negotiations are scheduled to begin. The fact that only six percent of the French and three percent of the Dutch "no" voters cited Turkish membership as the reason for their vote is also obscured in the arguments against Turkish integration.

In view of the strong arguments for Turkey's membership that emphasize its contribution to European security and stability, those who are against Turkey's membership are proposing an ingenious alternative: to anchor Turkey in Europe by means of a privileged partnership. This offer is rejected by both the Turkish government and the enlargement commissioner, who pointed out recently that Turkey was already a "privileged partner".

The issue of Turkish membership, however, could be turned into a positive challenge if approached from a fresh perspective rather than from entrenched positions. A federal Europe governed from Brussels is not in the cards; this is also the lesson to be taken from the French and Dutch voters' reactions. Variable geometry best describes the way in which the Union is now organized, and even the way EU-15 was organized before 2004. Not all members are in the Euro-zone, not all of them have signed the Schengen agreement, but none of them are described as privileged partners. "Ever closer union of the peoples of Europe", as expressed in the Treaty of the European Union, is achieved by means of shared values, shared institutions, rule of law, rights and obligations, and not by centralization of the means of government.

Consistent with its dynamic nature, an enlarged Europe can best maintain coherence by means of this variable geometry. A coherent definition of variable geometry, in turn, would help to reconcile the legal definition of the Union with its de facto arrangement, and would allow the EU to proceed with the agreed program of enlargement that has been such an essential part of its success story.- Published 21/7/2005 (c) bitterlemons-international.org

Ahmet O. Evin is founding dean of the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences at Sabanci University. He is a professor of political science at Sabanci and is a member of the board of directors of Istanbul Policy Center.