Turkey, the EU, and the Importance of Bridges

On Thursday, Britain, Spain and Finland blocked an Austrian-French proposal to raise the bar for the Human Rights' criteria for Turkey's accession. This recent attempt by France and Austria to block Turkey's entrance into the EU represents an enormous mistake by the two that might end up costing the EU its only viable bridge to the Muslim world; sending Turkey into an Islamist future nobody wants.

Since the establishemnt of the EU, its members have tried to see themselves in a progressive light; surpassing religion. For them, delaying Turkey's accession to the EU is a technical matter of Turkey failing to fulfil its requirements; however they fail to see how things are percieved from the other side. In Turkey it is percieved as another victory for Islamist voices in their quest to show that Europe discriminates against Muslims. This recent raising of the bar, although important further along the way, joins another humiliation the EU has recently inflicted upon Turkey - namely Cyprus.

The Turkish and Greek populations of Cyprus are at odds. Before the inclusion the EU held a referendum in the island concerning the unification of the two parts into one sovereign state. The Greek said 'No' while the Turkish said 'Yes'. The reward for the Greek Cypriots for alienating the Turks was inclusion into the EU of the Greek part only. Following this, Turkey, who has long sought a connection to the Turkish part, was forced to extend EU benefits to the Greek part before it even joins. And now they are rejected once again. On the Turkish side of Cyprus as well as in Turkey the message is clear: if you are Muslim, you are not welcome in Europe; Christian Greek-Orthodox? Welcome. What an awful mistake. Turkey has gone a considerable way to improve towards raising its Human Rights' standards for the sake of accession. It has gone further than any other country and now it is being rewarded with new demands instead of signs of hope.

If the EU had no intentions of letting Turkey join, that is fine. However it should have given it the indication a long time ago and not create false hopes; thus at least treating Turkey with respect. By seeding false hopes, it has alienated the population of the country that had the most potential to become a Muslim-West bridge. Instead that aforementioned Islamist future is going to overcome the moderate Muslim voices of Turkey in determinig the country's discourse as it plays on the peoples' frastration. And so when things get ugly, the EU will only be able to blame itself for alienating Turkey, the only bridge that could have connected both worlds. And that's a shame because just as Turkey is trying to bridge between Israel and the Muslim world, it could try to do the same for the EU.