Germany Remains Turkey's Ally in EU Bid

Since coming to power in 1998, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer have doggedly resisted strong domestic opposition to fight the case for Turkey's place at the EU table.

Despite complaints about the economic costs of bringing Ankara in, the attacks of September 11 and Germany's unwitting role in them as a rear base for three of the suicide hijackers, have focused Berlin on its strategic needs.

Turkey straddles the Middle East, the volatile Caucasus region in southern Russia and the Balkans, the cradle of some of the Old Continent's major conflicts, and Germany is home to Europe's biggest Turkish immigrant community.

"Your strategic decision you have to make -- to change the situation in the whole region, including Iraq, for the better. And for the Europeans it will be Turkey," Fischer told guests at the American Academy in Berlin last week.

Berlin pledges to back Ankara

Schröder's government has moved beyond giving lip service to the notion of Turkey's EU candidacy, as was the case under the conservative government of Helmut Kohl, to making it one of the pillars of German foreign policy. It threw its weight in earnest behind Ankara's bid at the EU's summit in Copenhagen in late 2002, which was focused on enlargement.

With France in tow, the government in Berlin initiated the proposal that will in December see EU leaders decide on Turkey's future based on a European Commission report this week about its progress toward democratic reforms.

"If the European Commission recommends opening accession talks, then Germany will clearly support that," Schröder said Sunday before presenting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan an award for his reform work so far.

Opposition calls for 'special relationship'

The German opposition has, meanwhile, raised the issue of human rights abuses and says Turkey does not share the same "values", ostensibly cultural and religious, as the Union.

"From a geographical point of view, I think that Europe has to have borders so that its integrity is not endangered," Edmund Stoiber, the former conservative candidate for Chancellor, told AFP last week.

"This doesn't rule out having ties through a partnership," he added.

Economic Opportunities

For the German business community, Turkey's membership will bring economic opportunities to its biggest trading partner and, in the words of Wholesale and Foreign Trade Federation head Anton Boerner, a "growth and profit spiral".

About 30 percent of Turkey's trade with the EU is with Germany. However, for the conservatives, acutely aware of the massive cost of German reunification, the price is too high. The Brussels think-tank "Friends of Europe" has estimated that Turkey's integration will cost some 15 billion euros annually over three years. Germany would pay the most: 2.4 billion euros a year.

"While integration would be good for Turkey, it would be unmanageable for Europe, in particular from a financial point of view because the costs of such an integration would be too high," Stoiber said.

Strengthening Turkey's ties to the West

However Heinz Kramer, an expert on Turkish affairs at the SWP institute, told AFP that a firm date for accession talks could be good all round.

"A prospect of membership will help the Turkish government consolidate its reform programme and will send a signal to the financial and economic markets that Turkey is more strongly linked to the West," he said.

That aside, public opinion is not in Ankara's favour. A recent survey found that 35 percent of people support Turkey joining the bloc, while 57 are against.