TÜSİAD organized a conference on the future of Turkey-EU relations in collaboration with the Brookings Institute on 20th of November 2014 in Istanbul.
In his speech, TÜSİAD President Haluk Dinçer said “we are worried about the separation of perceptions between Turkey and the EU. Turkey’s soft power and active foreign policy in its region and toward its neighbors in the early 2000s stemmed from its secular democratic system and its EU membership perspective. Turkey’s rising power status that provided high economic growth came from its harmony with EU values. Therefore, on the path of a secular and pluralist democracy, there is no tangible and serious alternative to its membership perspective,” He has noted its worry over the divergence in perception between Turkey and the European Union, adding that there was "no alternative" to joining the bloc to guarantee a secular and pluralist democracy.
Dinçer said that although many years have passed in Turkey-EU relations, no tangible calendar has ever been set, stressing that accession negotiations should be revived. He listed a number of factors that have affected accession negotiations, placing the decline of the EU’s enlargement perspective after the euro crisis and the EU commission’s failure to foresee any enlargement in the coming five years as the most important factor that could affect both parties. Dinçer said the future of the Cyprus negotiations, which also involved international actors, was a determining factor, and emphasized that Turkey "should display a more constructive attitude."
Claiming that there had recently been a regression in terms of Turkey’s democratic environment, political criteria, state of law, and freedom of speech, Dinçer said Chapters 23 and 24 of the accession process - concerning the judiciary, fundamental rights, freedom and security - should be immediately opened. Agreements on readmission and visa facilitation had a positive effect on the public as part of EU-Turkey negotiations, Dinçer said, adding that efforts to lift the "political blockades" of some EU countries could also contribute to negotiations. The TÜSİAD head said Turkey should focus on fulfilling the preconditions of the chapters that do not have such political barriers ahead of them.
Dinçer also emphasized that TÜSİAD "did not agree with the understanding that democracy, economic growth and prosperity is a zero-sum game." “It is a global fact that welfare and high amounts of consumption are not sustainable in the long-run without democracy,” he said.
Italian Deputy Foreign Minister Lapo Pistelli, who was the honorary speaker of the conference said that when looked at from Europe, today’s Turkey was perceived as part of the “mess” of the Middle East. He underlined that Turkey faces with a number of problems that maybe require a new cooperation with the EU.
Kemal Derviş, the Vice-President of the Brookings Institute, said in his speech that business owners in Turkey - especially in areas close to its Middle Eastern neighbors, Syria, Iraq and Iran - have once again started to consider Europe a better trading partner. Derviş linked that observation to the recent German Marshall Fund survey that showed popular support in Turkey for EU membership rising above 50 percent for the first time in three years.
“The danger of being absorbed in the Middle Eastern mess, or tragedy, heightens every day” Derviş said. He stressed that time was running out for Turkey to be included in the EU’s near future scheme, but added that it was still not too late to get integrated eventually, perhaps to a differently structured Europe, hinting at the “privileged partnership” model suggested by Germany’s Angela Merkel.
During the conference Nathalie Tocci from the Institute for International Affairs presented her report on the future of the relations between Turkey and the EU. The conference ended with a panel discussion on the report.