Get Ready For A New Kind Of Union

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Dear Joschka," began the letter Colin Powell recently sent to German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. "Although the U.S. is not a member of the E.U. ... " And that's where the U.S. Secretary of State's missive might as well have ended. Powell went on to write that the European Union must "act boldly to expand the zone of stability and prosperity" by offering Turkey "a firm date" for starting talks on its accession to the E.U. While some European leaders — notably Tony Blair, Silvio Berlusconi, José María Aznar and Costas Simitis — agreed in principle with Powell's argument, many Europeans thought America's full-court press for Turkey — including phone calls from George W. Bush to several heads of state — amounted to meddling. At a summit of the European Council in Copenhagen last week, the 15 leaders of E.U. governments decided that Washington's version of boldness wasn't called for and that Turkey would have to wait until December 2004 to learn whether its reforms meet the E.U.'s criteria for membership. Turkey will have to be patient, but it now seems on track to eventually win the prize it seeks.

"There was a general meeting of the minds that the U.S. and Turkey had overplayed their hands," according to a Danish official. And European leaders couldn't help but stick it to the uppity Yanks. "We don't run to Washington telling them they ought to make Colombia the 51st state so they could curb the drug trade, even though that would be in our interest," says Elmar Brok, a German Christian Democrat who chairs the foreign affairs committee of the European Parliament. "The U.S. has to understand that the E.U. is a quasi-state entity, with standards and rules and, soon, a constitution. We're not some alliance or free trade area."

Washington has been arguing for years that Turkey should be made a formal E.U. candidate. But after the Sept. 11 attacks, and particularly since war plans for Iraq took shape, the push has been more urgent. What better way to demonstrate the benefits of reform to the Muslim world than to reward Turkey's new, Islam-based ruling party with an invitation to join Europe's most exclusive club? That would demonstrate that the war on terrorism is not just an anti-Muslim crusade — and it might help salve Turkish irritation at having some of that war waged from its territory.

Turkey's membership might not even be under debate right now without this long-term American lobbying. But would it be on a faster track if the Americans hadn't leaned so hard before Copenhagen? "The security and strategic future of the U.S. is closely linked to that of Europe, so it's not fair to say that America is intervening in an issue in which it is not involved," said a British diplomat. "They are making certain suggestions based on their strategic vision, which is one they share with Europe."

Turkey's entry may not come for another decade; but if and when it does, the E.U. will have a direct stake in the Middle East and a broader strategic interest that is likely to force it out of its obsession with its own bureaucratic processes. The other chief result of the summit will have the same effect. After more than two years of tough negotiations, some of which went down to the wire last Friday night, the E.U. agreed the exact terms under which 10 candidate countries, most of them survivors of the Soviet bloc, will join the Union on May 1, 2004.

"The deal that we have reached here in Copenhagen represents the E.U. at its best: leadership, solidarity and determination," said European Commission President Romano Prodi. The Union will need plenty more of the same. Pending ratification of the accession agreements by both new and existing member governments, the E.U. will be much bigger, far poorer on average, and in even more dire need of reform of its sclerotic and often unfathomable decision-making processes. "This will from now on be a fundamentally different union," said British Prime Minister Tony Blair. "It has to be."

One of the 10 new members is Cyprus, which has been split between Greeks and Turks for a generation. The U.N. pushed a plan to end the island's 28-year division in November, hoping that the prospect of E.U. membership would jumpstart negotiations to settle Europe's longest-running standoff. That trap never sprang. As promised, the E.U. will now admit the Greek part of Cyprus, but urged both sides to keep working toward a deal.

The Turkish government had set its sights unerringly on starting negotiations before the E.U. grows from 15 to 25 members. It worries that it will have a tougher time getting unanimous approval to start the proceedings once the E.U. includes the new members, who are already upset at the relatively paltry j40.4 billion in financial aid they'll receive from the Union up until 2006. They may not welcome the prospect of eventually having to share aid with Turkey, a massive country with a lower per capita gdp than all the new joiners.

Still, Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul sees the glass as half-full. "Some politicians think the E.U. is a Christian club," he said. "This summit showed that this opinion isn't correct." Justice and Development Party leader Recep Tayyip Erdogan was widely criticized alongside the Americans for being too forceful in his demands, but in effect he pulled off a remarkable diplomatic coup by moving toward membership, even if it's on a slower timetable than he would have liked. "If you'd asked me just two weeks ago whether we'd come to this result, I'd have said no," said Germany's Fischer.

By the time it completes negotiations and presumably enters the E.U., perhaps by 2015, Turkey is likely to have some 80 million people. It would thus be the largest member — and one of the poorest. Its young population could be an advantage for the E.U.'s looming imbalance between pensioners and workers, but its different cultural, military and, yes, religious traditions could change the face of Europe. Few people doubt that the prospect of eventual membership will spur Turkey to continue on the path of reform. But no one is sure what would happen once it actually joined.