19 April 2017

Why the EU should terminate
accession negotiations with Turkey
Steven Blockmans and Sinem Yilmaz

Dictators do not simply come and go. And when they go, they rarely go quietly. The testof a dictator like President Erdoğan isn't how he came to power but how he treatscritics, journalists, minorities, and whether he can still be outvoted. Now that a narrow
majority of Turkish voters in the referendum has supported the codification of autocracy, any
hope for the democratic removal of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has evaporated. Given this sorrystate of affairs, the EU has no other choice but to terminate Turkey’s accession process. By
constitutionalising an executive presidential system that erases the separation of powers andfrees Erdoğan’s hands to deepen repression, Turkey will be in breach of the ‘political’ criteria
for EU membership for years, if not decades, to come.1
Rather than merely ‘suspending’ accession negotiations in an attempt to keep up appearances– bureaucratic language that will be lost on Erdoğan as much as it will be on liberal Turks andEuropean citizens – the EU should stand behind its core values and reset its relationship with
the Republic of Turkey on a more credible and strategic footing, while pressing the regime on
respect for human rights and working with civil society to keep the flame of ‘deep’ democracy
alive.

Action, reaction?
Thus far, the EU institutions and the Turkish authorities have engaged in a game of ‘chicken’,gambling on which side will be the first to pull the plug on Turkey’s accession process. After theVenice Commission’s sharp condemnation of the proposed amendments to Turkey’s
constitution and the curbs on media freedom in the country, High Representative Federica
Mogherini and European Commissioner Johannes Hahn issued a carefully worded statement in1

For an anatomy of the constitutional changes, see S. Blockmans and S. Yilmaz, “Turkey and the Codification ofAutocracy”, CEPS Policy Insights, March 2017.
Steven Blockmans is Head of the EU Foreign Policy unit at CEPS and Professor of EU External
Relations Law and Governance at the University of Amsterdam. Sinem Yilmaz is a PhD candidate atGhent University and an intern at the EU Foreign Policy unit of CEPS.
CEPS Commentaries offer concise, policy-oriented insights into topical issues in European affairs. As
an institution, CEPS takes no official position on questions of EU policy. The views expressed are
attributable only to the authors and not to any institution with which they are associated.
Available for free downloading from the CEPS website (www.ceps.eu) • © CEPS 2017
CEPS ▪ Place du Congrès 1 ▪ B-1000 Brussels ▪ Tel: (32.2) 229.39.11 ▪ www.ceps.eu

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which they expressed their concerns about, among others, the excessive concentration ofpowers around the presidency, which would have a serious impact on the necessary checks
and balances. Nevertheless, they deferred the final assessment until after the referendum andsaid that they would evaluate
the proposed amendments (…) and especially their practical implementations (…) in lightof Turkey’s obligations as an EU candidate country and as a member of the Council ofEurope.

In other words, the EU is unwilling to act on the constitutional changes alone but will reconsider
its assessment only when their “practical implementations” become too grave to ignore.
At the end of referendum day on April 16th, the pair – now joined by Commission President
Jean-Claude Juncker, was quick to re-issue the statement, in an effort to buy more time:
We are awaiting the assessment of the OSCE/ODIHR International Observation Mission,
also with regard to alleged irregularities. (…) We encourage Turkey to address the Councilof Europe's concerns and recommendations, including with regards to the State ofEmergency. In view of the close referendum result and the far-reaching implications of theconstitutional amendments, we also call on the Turkish authorities to seek the broadest
possible national consensus in their implementation.

In a preliminary report published less than 24 hours later, the OSCE and the Council of Europe
said that the vote had been held “on an unlevel playing field,” a reference to a state ofemergency imposed by Erdoğan’s government in the wake of the failed military coup of July
2016. Under the state of emergency, deputies from one of the main opposition parties wereamong the thousands of people arrested, ‘no’ campaigners were physically intimidated andtheir rallies and access to public media were suppressed.
The EU should draw its own conclusions, rather than try to avoid aggravating an autocrat for
stating the obvious. Similarly, the EU should enforce its own rules on membership andterminate accession negotiations, rather than try to limit political damage by taking a softer
approach. By deferring to the judgment of other international organisations, or by waiting forErdoğan to make good on his campaign bluster to organise a ‘Trexit’ referendum, or anotheron the reintroduction of the death penalty, the EU is ducking responsibility and losing
credibility. It need not wait for the “practical implementations” of the constitutional
amendments to find that Erdoğan’s Turkey has crossed multiple red lines.
Since the start of the purge last summer, Turkey has been in blatant breach of democratic
principles and fundamental rights, which form the backbone of the Copenhagen criteria. TheCommission should not cower under political pressure from member states but assume its role
as guardian of the treaties. Members of the European Parliament should live up to thedemocratic principles they represent. The Commission and the Parliament should recommendthat the Council ‘terminate’ accession negotiations with Turkey. The General Affairs Council atthe end of April provides an opportunity to formalise that decision and to discuss the desired
breadth and depth of the future bilateral relationship. The European Council could then adopt
guidelines for a strategic agenda for EU-Turkey relations in June.

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Partnership not membership
There are several reasons to prefer a strict approach to a half-hearted suspension of talks. First,
it is evident that after more than ten years of trying, accession negotiations have failed andTurkey has gone in the opposite direction of EU membership. The country’s regression incomplying with the Copenhagen criteria has been well documented by the Commission insuccessive annual reports. The latest amendments to the constitution represent the lowest
point in the long descent into autocracy.
Keeping up appearances in a dysfunctional accession process undermines the EU’s image as asoft power and as a beacon of democracy and rule of law. To be fair, the EU’s image has lost
some of its shine in the past few years as a result of illiberal tendencies in member states like
Hungary and Poland. Whilst working to remedy that situation internally, the EU should upholdthe same core values and principles that underpin its policies externally. By terminating
accession talks with Turkey, the EU would make it clear that the ‘political’ criteria formembership, as agreed at the 1993 summit of the European Council in Copenhagen, constitutethe irrefutable DNA of the EU rather than simple boxes to be ticked on a negotiable checklist.
Second, by terminating accession talks with Turkey, the EU would set an important precedentin showing that the pre-accession track is not a one-way street to guaranteed membership.
This move should have a disciplining effect on other pre-accession countries in southeast
Europe where popular support for EU membership remains high, but compliance with EU
demands by the authorities has lagged behind. It would raise the stakes in Macedonia andBosnia-Herzegovina, where the debilitating obstruction by unaccountable politicians of state
institutions and the clash between Russian and neo-Ottoman influences should be decided inthe EU’s favour. The effect on Serbia might be harder to gauge, given that it is the only country
in the region where support for EU membership has dropped below 50%. But the EU should beconsistent in its approach and not undermine the credibility of the enlargement policy. It should
also work harder to make good on the promise made back in 2003 to integrate the WesternBalkans.

Re-entry into the EU
Third, Turkey remains a ‘European’ country with a capacity to trigger Article 49 TEU; it could
therefore reapply for EU membership if and when it is ready to accept the rules of the club.
Even if starting the process from scratch is more cumbersome than a resumption of talks, a
mid- to longer-term suspension would anyway have to be followed by a wholesale screening ofcompliance with membership conditions and pre-accession benchmarks, and possibly therenegotiation of the latter.
Moreover, any decision by the EU to suspend talks would in any case be sold as ‘termination’by President Erdoğan to audiences at home. While it is true that cancelling accession
negotiations would relieve the regime of any pretence at democratisation, it ought not to kill
the incentive for reform that remains in Turkish society, particularly in the big cities in the westof the country. On the contrary: it may reinforce it. If the EU is seen to get tough with theregime, while supporting any remaining political opposition, human rights defenders and civil

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society organisations in and outside of the country, it will prove itself to be a more effective
antidote to the authoritarian rule of President Erdoğan. This support would also speak to thefrustration felt by many Turks at the EU’s unprincipled attitude towards the great leader.
Proponents of suspending accession talks systematically exaggerate the impact of nuanced
bureaucratic language and underestimate the potential damage of giving false hope to thosethey claim to protect. The risk of further autocratic behaviour and instability in Turkey is real,irrespective of the EU’s decision to suspend or terminate accession talks. Boosted by the victoryin the referendum on April 16th, Erdoğan has again floated the idea of organising a referendum
on the reintroduction of the death penalty – testing the EU’s knee-jerk reaction. Moredangerously, he has effectively imported the war in Syria to the southeast of Turkey, fanningthe flames of both homegrown and international terrorism. These and other tendencies willcontinue to play out according to their own domestic logic and regional dynamics.
Finally, the EU should emancipate itself from the humiliating and reprehensible migration dealwith Turkey. Leaders of key member states and EU institutions continue to defend the EUTurkey Statement of March 2016 as a game changer in dealing with the refugee and migration
crisis. Ahead of national elections in France, Germany and other EU member states, they havebeen bending over backwards to emphasise the importance of Turkey sticking to a deal thatrights groups have exposed as a humanitarian disaster, thereby downplaying the flanking
measures (e.g. closing the Balkan route) that have been just as important in ‘stopping the flow’.
Relishing his position as kingmaker and arch scaremonger, Erdoğan has directly or indirectly
threatened to suspend the agreement and allow 15,000 refugees to make their way to Europe
every month. Just as it was unwilling to be blackmailed by the same tactics of Libya’s Colonel
Gaddafi, the EU should not allow itself to be held hostage by Mr Erdoğan. The migration deal isinherently flawed, for moral, political and humanitarian reasons, and parts of it have become
unviable, particularly “the commitment to re-energise the accession process”. The EU-Turkey
Statement should therefore be revisited, sooner rather than later.
Any attempt to defuse this time bomb during the campaign for the German federal elections
might be tricky in terms of potential fall-out among supporters of both Chancellor Merkel andPresident Erdoğan in Germany. But it may also prove necessary to limit the damage if Erdoğan
does indeed ‘open the floodgates’. If handled properly, political parties in Germany could be
rewarded with electoral gains, but only if it is underpinned by a principled position on thetermination of accession talks. What is clear is that neither Germany nor the EU should remainin this vulnerable position vis-à-vis a dictatorial regime in Ankara, because it could destabilise
Europe more than the defenders of the migration deal appear to believe.
Incidentally, visa-free travel for Turkish citizens should be treated independently and remainhigh on the agenda of a strategic partnership. If Turkey is willing to comply with the conditions
for visa liberalisation, then the EU should be ready to extend that right.
In the spirit of ‘principled pragmatism’ that emanates from its 2016 global strategy, the EUshould uphold its core values and take the opportunity to refashion a strategic partnership withTurkey around a number of issues that are of mutual interest, and which in fact have alreadyWHY THE EU SHOULD TERMINATE ACCESSION NEGOTIATIONS WITH TURKEY | 5

become ‘escape routes’ from the pre-accession process. These issues are: migration and thefree movement of people, counter-terrorism and regional security, energy and themodernisation of the customs union. Such a transactional arrangement would inject a muchneeded dose of realism into the flailing relationship. But it should be clear to Erdoğan that, aspart of such a transactional approach, any future bilateral cooperation should go hand in handwith a reinvigorated human rights dialogue and continued EU support for civil society.
The EU must not abandon the half of the Turkish population that did not vote for thecodification of autocracy.