Spiegel Interview on Turkey (in German) – Gerald Knaus September 2016

“Totales Misstrauen”

Interview Gerald Knaus für Der Spiegel

Das Interview ist hier: Spiegel Spezial “Brennpunkt Türkei” – 1/2016

Ausschnitt:

Spiegel: Die Türkei ist extrem enttäuscht darüber, dass kein europäischer Spitzenpolitiker das Land nach dem Putschversuch Mitte Juli besucht hat.  Zurecht?

Knaus: Ja. Wenn der deutsche oder der französische oder der italienische Außenminister, am besten alle drei gemeinsam, in den Tagen nach dem Putsch gekommen wären, das Parlament besucht hätten, ins Spital gegangen wären, etwa den türkischen Botschafter in Deutschland, Avni Karslıoğlu, der ja von den Putschisten verletzt wurde, besucht hätten – dann wäre das ein wichtiges Signal der Unterstützung für die Demokratie gewesen. Dann wären auch Ratschläge, bei der Bewältigung der Putschfolgen nicht über das Ziel hinauszuschießen, heute glaubwürdiger. Das Misstrauen der Türkei, das es schon nach der schwachen europäischen Reaktion auf den Militärputsch in Ägypten gab, hat sich durch die Abwesenheit von hochrangigen Besuchern aus Europa noch verstärkt. Und viele Türken in allen politischen Lagern vermuten, das Ausland habe entweder auf den Erfolg der Putschisten gehofft, oder sie vielleicht sogar unterstützt. Da dies bei Putschen in der Vergangenheit – 1960, 1980 – tatsächlich der Fall war, fallen solche Theorien in der Türkei auf fruchtbaren Boden.

SPIEGEL: Was sollte Europa jetzt tun?

Knaus: Die EU sollte unbedingt an der Position festhalten, dass eine rechtsstaatliche Türkei ein sehr wichtiger Partner wäre. Sie sollte aber auch klare rote Linie ziehen die für alle Beitrittskandidaten gelten – das hat Brüssel bei der Todesstrafe gemacht, und es sollte auch für systematische Folter gelten, die man in keinem Europaratsmitglied tolerieren darf. Wir sollten nicht sagen, es ist hoffnungslos, wir geben auf, oder uns gar der Illusion hingeben, man könnte a la Trump, auf dem Balkan eine Mauer bauen und hinter der fänden in der Türkei dann Dinge statt, um die man sich nicht kümmern müsste. Gleichzeitig kann man den Beitrittsprozess, so wie er jetzt strukturiert ist, auch nicht einfach weiterführen ohne Änderungen. Verhandlungskapitel öffnen, ohne dass irgendetwas passiert, nährt nur Zynismus, in der EU und in der Türkei.  Die EU müsste den Zustand der Justiz, und konkrete Prozessbeobachtungen, in das Zentrum ihrer Arbeit stellen. Denn was die Türkei am meisten braucht, ist ein Ausweg aus einer Welt des totalen Misstrauens, wo jeder immer nur einen Schritt vom Gefängnis entfernt ist.

SPIEGEL: Der österreichische Bundeskanzler hat den Abbruch der Beitrittsverhandlungen gefordert. War das ein Fehler?

Knaus: In diesem Moment auf jeden Fall. Erstens gibt es dafür in der EU keine Unterstützung, aus vielen guten Gründen. Man zweitens sollte man den Menschen in der Türkei, die sich weiterhin für Rechtsstaatlichkeit und Menschenrechte einsetzen, zeigen, dass die EU nach wie vor daran interessiert ist was dort passiert.

SPIEGEL: Kann das Flüchtlingsabkommen zwischen EU und Türkei angesichts der politischen Krise noch aufrechterhalten werden?

Knaus: Es gibt in Ankara weiterhin den Willen, daran festzuhalten, allerdings ist es schwieriger geworden, für beide Seiten. In der Türkei fragt man sich, wie die EU in dieser Situation eine Veränderung des Antiterrorgesetzes fordern kann. Und in der EU fragt man sich, wie man in dieser Situation die Visa-Freiheit einführen kann. Das wurde leider zu einer Frage der Würde stilisiert, als ob die EU ihre Werte verraten würde, wenn die Türkei nur 70 von 72 Forderungen erfüllt, die die EU am Beginn der Verhandlungen aufstellte. Es geht hier um Verhandlungen, wo beide Seiten Interessen haben. Als Serbien oder  Mazedonien Visafreiheit erhielten stellte die EU nur 45 Bedingungen. Vor allem aber: wem würde es nützen, wenn man jetzt die Visa-Liberalisierung vom Tisch nähme, dann die Türkei das Rücknahmeabkommen aufkündigt und dann das Flüchtlingsabkommen scheitert? Würde das der EU und ihrem Einfluss in der Türkei helfen, oder Menschenrechtsaktivisten dort? Was bedeutet es für Griechenland und Bulgarien? Bei einem Scheitern verlieren alle. Das ist keine kluge Politik.

SPIEGEL: Erdoğan hat mehrmals damit gedroht, das Flüchtlingsabkommen platzen zu lassen, falls die Visa-Freiheit nicht bis Oktober kommt. Wie glaubhaft ist diese Drohung?

Knaus: Das Problem ist, dass in der EU missverstanden wird, was wir von der Türkei im Gegenzug für die Visaliberalisierung wirklich verlangen sollten. Damit das Flüchtlingsabkommen funktioniert, muss die Türkei zu einem nachweisbar sicheren Drittstaat werden für all jene, die jetzt auf den griechischen Inseln festsitzen. Wir brauchen nicht nur die erklärte Bereitschaft der Türkei, jene zurückzunehmen, die die Griechen schicken. Ankara muss auch klarstellen, dass dort, wo diese Flüchtlinge hingebracht werden, glaubwürdige Asylprozesse mit qualifizierten Asylbeamten, mit Übersetzern und mit transparenten Entscheiden und fairen Bedingungen existieren. Wenn das nicht klappt, wird Griechenland nie einen Asylantragsteller zurückschicken können. Dann verwandelt sich das Abkommen von selbst vom Merkel-Plan in einen Orbán-Plan, wo nur ein Element übrigbliebe, nämlich das unbegrenzte Festhalten von Flüchtlingen auf den griechischen Inseln. Das ginge aber höchstens noch ein paar Wochen gut. Man braucht Anstrengungen in der Türkei etwas aufzubauen, was auch in manchen EU-Mitgliedsländern nicht existiert, nämlich schnelle und glaubhafte Asylverfahren. Das muss sofort passieren. Man sollte der Türkei durchaus Bedingungen stellen, und diese mit der Visa-Liberalisierung verknüpfen, es müssten nur die richtigen sein.

SPIEGEL: Bislang wurden auch, anders als versprochen, so gut wie keine Flüchtlingen aus der Türkei nach Europa umgesiedelt. Warum nicht?

Knaus: Die EU und die Türkei sollten anerkennen, dass in den letzten Monaten die Zahl der Ankommenden in der Ägäis so stark zurückgegangen ist, dass man mit der freiwilligen Umsiedlung von Flüchtlingen jetzt beginnen müsste. Und dass die erste Phase, in der man das unselige Austauschprogramm hatte, wo für jeden zurückgeschickten Syrer ein Syrer aufgenommen werden sollte, beendet ist. Wenn man allerdings dazu übergehen will, eine größere Zahl von Flüchtlingen umzusiedeln, dann zeigt sich, dass die Verwaltungen auch in den bestorganisierten Ländern gar nicht drauf eingestellt sind. Auch nicht in der Türkei.  

SPIEGEL: Man müsste diese Verwaltungen also erst aufbauen?

Knaus: Genau. Wenn die EU 100 000 Leute oder mehr im nächsten Jahr aus der Türkei umsiedeln will, dann muss das jemand organisieren. Denn man muss die Identität der Leute feststellen, Sicherheitsüberprüfungen machen und glaubwürdig zeigen, dass man bereit ist, die Leute aufzunehmen. Wenn man diesen Apparat nicht aufbaut, dann zeigt man, dass dieses Versprechen nicht ernst gemeint ist. Dabei gibt ja sicherlich zehntausende Flüchtlinge allein in der Türkei, die als Verwandte von bereits in Europa lebenden Asylantragstellern oder Flüchtlingen eine enorme Motivation und auch das Recht haben, einen Weg zu ihren Angehörigen zu finden, der nicht über die Ägäis oder über Schlepper führt.

SPIEGEL: Die griechische Regierung sagt, Europa brauche in der Flüchtlingskrise einen Plan B. Wie könnte der aussehen?

Knaus: Es gibt ja bereits eine Art Plan B, der bei immer mehr europäischen Regierungen auf Sympathie stößt, der allerdings um vieles aufwendiger, unsicherer und teurer wäre als das bestehende Abkommen umzusetzen. Davor warnt auch UNHCR eindringlich. Es ist der alte Plan von Viktor Orbán: eine australische Lösung, die darauf setzt, dass Flüchtlinge die EU zwar erreichen können, aber dann dort festgehalten werden, ähnlich wie das Australien auf der Pazifik-Insel Nauru macht. Der österreichische Aussenminister hat in den vergangenen Wochen immer wieder davon gesprochen, dass man von der australischen Erfahrung lernen könne, er hat allerdings nicht gesagt, ob das dann noch mit der Flüchtlingskonvention in Einklang gebracht werden muss. Oder wo diese Insel ist.

SPIEGEL: Das wäre dann ganz Griechenland, inklusive des Festlands.

Knaus: Ja. Die EU würde darauf setzen, dass die Bedingungen in Griechenland so schlecht wären, dass die Leute aus eigenem Interesse in der Türkei oder in Afghanistan blieben. Um das zu verstärken, würden noch die Grenzen auf dem Balkan militarisiert. Statt der Türkei ist die EU dann von Mazedonien und Serbien abhängig. Diese Entwicklung wird eintreten, wenn man sich vom EU-Türkei-Plan verabschieden sollte. Die Belastungen wären nicht nur für Griechenland, sondern für ganz Europa immens und in ihren Konsequenzen unüberschaubar.

spiegel-spezial

The devil in the detail – EU-Turkey refugee summit in November 2015

How the November refugee summit can fail – and how to get a deal that works

In recent days ESI presented versions of this paper and these arguments to European policy makers. 

Gerald Knaus speaking at the OSCE expert panel. Photo: ESI

Presenting ESI proposal at OSCE expert panel in Warsaw

On Sunday 29 November the EU and Turkey will meet at an extraordinary summit in Brussels. The objective of this meeting is to make commitments that will stop the unregulated influx of currently more than 200,000 refugees per month into the EU from Turkey.

There are two ways in which this summit might fail. One would be the absence of any agreement. Since this would send a bad signal to the publics in EU member states, every effort will be made to avoid this.

However, there is a second way in which the summit can go wrong. It is even more dangerous. This is a scenario where the EU and Turkey agree on a deal, but merely set the stage for failure in the coming months, because the influx of refugees coming into the EU from Turkey will not be reduced. Both sides will then blame each other. Frustration will erode already abysmally low levels of trust. Precious time will be wasted and it might become harder to reach a workable deal later.

For the EU to avoid such a “disastrous success” on Sunday, member states need to understand why neither the EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan (from 15 October) nor the current draft statement to be agreed on 29 November will make any significant difference to the flow of refugees. The devil really lies in the detail.

 

What is wrong with the current draft statement

The current draft concluding statement for the Sunday summit has eleven paragraphs. What do they contain?

There are many references to aside commitments for Turkey and the EU to “meet and talk” more – at regular annual summits; at regular political dialogue meetings; at regular high-level meetings on thematic issues; at regular Association Council meetings; at a meeting at the end of 2016 to upgrade the existing customs union. More meetings and talking might be good, or bad, or meaningless, depending on the results, but it does not change things on the ground, and certainly not in the short term.

This leaves four “substantive” paragraphs: one on visa liberalisation and readmission; one on accession talks; one on EU financial assistance for Turkey; and one on “activating” the October 2015 EU-Turkey Joint Action Plan. To see why these measures will make no real difference to the flow of refugees in the Aegean, let us take a closer look at each.

Visa and readmission

The EU and Turkey launched a formal visa liberalisation process in December 2013. The goal of this process is to remove the requirement for Turkish citizens to obtain a visa for short (up to three months) visits of the EU’s Schengen zone as tourists or for business.

According to the EU roadmap on which this process is based, Turkey has to meet 72 requirements to qualify for visa-free travel. In an October 2014 assessment the European Commission found for 27 requirements that Turkey was “far from meeting this benchmark” or that there were “no particular positive developments to address them.”[1] (see below)

There was always a simple principle: once Turkey meets the conditions of the visa roadmap (at least as much as other countries from the Balkans did who received visa liberalisation in recent years) the Commission will propose to lift the visa requirement.

At present the EU and Turkey aim to agree on the following this Sunday:

“The European Commission will present a second progress report on the implementation by Turkey of the visa liberalization roadmap by early March 2016.”

The European Commission will “present its third progress report in autumn 2016 with a view to completing the visa liberalisation process i.e. the lifting of visa requirements for Turkish citizens in the Schengen zone by October 2016 once the requirements of the Roadmap are met.”

Note: this does not add anything to what was always the case! It was always true that the European Commission would ask member states to lift (by a qualified majority) the visa requirement once the requirements of the roadmap are met. There is no “concession” here. Nor is there any commitment by member states on how they will vote on this in October.

Which raises the question: would it not be better for the EU to see Turkey meet all criteria by March 2016? Especially if this is essential to reduce the flow of migrants across the Aegean?

In return for this non-concession, Turkey is expected to do something that looks superficially important but that will also make no difference:

The EU and Turkey “agree that the EU-Turkey readmission agreement will become fully applicable from June 2016.”

A track record of implementation of the EU-Turkey readmission agreement is one of the 72 conditions in the visa roadmap. The readmission agreement states that Turkey is to take back all third country nationals three years after the entry into force of the readmission agreement, which will be on 1 October 2017.

However, what does it really mean if Turkey agrees to make it “fully applicable” from June 2016? What will be the concrete impact on movements in the Aegean? Most people who reach the EU through the Greek islands are Syrians. Anyone who reaches the EU and applies for asylum cannot be returned to Turkey unless their asylum application is processed and rejected (i.e. they are found to be “economic migrants”, the language the draft statement uses). In 2014, only 5 percent of Syrian asylum seekers were rejected across the EU. Now the rejection rate might be even lower. The rejection cognition rates for other nationalities reaching the EU in high numbers, Afghanis and Iraqis, were also low in 2014.

This significantly reduces the number of people that could be returned. An asylum procedure is usually also a lengthy process since asylum seekers rejected at first instance can appeal and are allowed to stay until the court makes its decision. This often takes a year or more.

There is another problem. Very few migrants apply for asylum in Greece. They apply in Germany or Sweden or other EU countries further north. However, if they reach these countries through the Western Balkans, the EU-Turkey readmission agreement no longer applies. It requires that persons to whom it is applied “illegally and directly entered the territory of the Member States after having stayed on, or transited through, the territory of Turkey” (Art. 4). Those who take the Balkan route enter the EU “directly” from Serbia, not Turkey.

In fact, the EU-Turkey readmission agreement is unnecessary. What really matters is that Turkey already has a readmission agreement in force with Greece since 2002. Between 2002 and the end of last year, Greece asked for the readmission of 135,000 irregular migrants. Turkey accepted 13,100 of these, and in the end 3,800 (3 percent) were returned to Turkey. In 2015, Turkey has accepted more requests. But so far, only 8 people have actually been returned to Turkey this year – by the time Turkey is ready to admit them, they are usually no longer in Greece.[2]

Readmission of irregular migrants from Greece to Turkey

Year Migrants whose readmission Greece requested Migrants accepted by Turkey Migrants actually readmitted
2012 20,464 823 113
2013 3,741 370 35
2014 9,691 470 6
Jan-Sept 2015 8,727 2,395 8

 

This means concretely that the full entry into force of the EU-Turkey readmission agreement in summer 2016 does not add anything to what the Greece-Turkey readmission agreement already provides for. It does not apply to those who apply for asylum and are waiting for the decision. It does not apply to those who obtain asylum. And legally it does not apply to rejected asylum seekers or irregular migrant who have reached EU territory after transiting through the Western Balkans.

As currently formulated, the commitments to visa liberalisation and readmission appear strong and raise expectations but are in fact weak and inconsequential. They set the stage for another round of mutual recriminations, acrimony and disappointment. And they will not change the dynamic of refugees crossing the Aegean.

Accession process “acceleration”

At the summit, the EU will also commit to open one chapter in the EU accession talks, in December. This sounds good, but what does it actually mean?

Note that this does not actually constitute an “acceleration” of Turkey-EU accession talks. More than one decade after the start of the accession talks, 14 out of 34 negotiating chapters have been opened.  In the first five years (2005-2010), 13 chapters were opened; in the second five years (2010-2015) 1 chapter was. Now 1 more will bring the total number to 15. This is still an excruciatingly slow process.

Note also that this is the only commitment concerning enlargement that the EU is planning to make. While there is “language” (as diplomats might say) referring to five other chapters, which have been blocked by Cyprus for many years, all the EU promises here is that the Commission will do “preparatory” work “without prejudice to the position of member states”. In plain language this means that the preparatory work may lead to nothing at all if Cyprus maintains its blockage.

In fact, the problem goes deeper. What does opening a chapter in December mean for Turkish citizens? The chapter concerned is “Economic and monetary policy” (chapter 17). One of the main issues that the chapter covers is the independence of central banks.

According to the recently published 2015 Turkey Progress Report, the past year has seen “increased political pressure on the central bank [which] undermines its independence and credibility.” Will this change just because the chapter will be opened? For the Turkish government, having influence on the central bank is convenient. Maintaining it comes at no cost as long as there is no real prospect of joining the EU. But carrying out reforms is acrtually the only real way for Turkey to “reenergize” the EU accession process. Everything else is political theatre.

Financial assistance

 The EU also promises money for the refugees in Turkey:

“The EU will provide immediate and continuous humanitarian assistance in Turkey. It will also expand significantly its overall financial support.

A Refugee Facility for Turkey was established by the Commission to coordinate and streamline actions financed in order to deliver efficient and complementary support to Syrians under temporary protection and host communities in Turkey.

The EU is committed to provide an initial 3 billion euros of additional resources from the Union’s budget and contributions from Member States. The need for and nature of this funding will be reviewed in the light of the developing situation.”

Note: the money is not yet available, even though the EU is committed to mobilising it and working on it. 500 million are to come out of the EU budget and 2.5 billion from member states. If and when they will provide this sum of money is unknown. Member states have also committed to increasing funding for the EU’s Syria Trust Fund, which addresses the needs of Syrian refugees in Turkey and other countries of the region. Since September, they have pledged only 49 of 500 million.[3]

The Refugee Facility will become operational on 1 January 2016. A Steering Committee will provide strategic guidance, coordinate with other funding mechanisms, and decide on which actions will be financed. Turkey will be represented on this committee in an advisory capacity.[4] This is commendable. Many Syrian refugees in Turkey are in need of humanitarian assistance, and many of their children are in need of school education; only 200,000 of the 700,000 school-age children actually go to school, due to the language barrier and limited capacities of Turkish schools.

However, even if the education problem were resolved and all Syrian refugees in need received humanitarian aid, would this convince them to stay in Turkey? Many refugees are looking for a place where they can start new lives after many years of waiting – where they can work (in Turkey they are not allowed to), re-train if needed, where there is assistance if they do not find a job straight away, where their children receive good education, which offers them a long-term perspective. In this regard, Germany will remain more attractive in many ways.

The language in the current draft declaration on what Turkey promises to do in order to offer a credible perspective to Syrians in the country remains vague and general (“…Equally, they welcomed the intention of Turkey to adopt immediately measures to further improve the socio-economic situation of the Syrians under temporary protection.”). This will not keep any Syrians from moving to the EU.

 

Activating the joint action plan

There is one more point in the statement that promises more than it can deliver:

“Turkey and the EU have decided to activate the Joint Action Plan that had been agreed until now ad referenda on 15 October 2015, to step up their cooperation for support of Syrians under temporary protection and migration management to address the crisis created by the situation in Syria. The EU and Turkey agreed to implement the Joint Action Plan which will bring order into migratory flows and help to stem irregular migration.”

How the joint action plan will help to stem irregular migration is not really explained. The draft statements mentions three specific points, all vague. One is cooperation on “economic migrants”:

“As a consequence, both sides will, as agreed and with immediate effect, step up their active cooperation on economic migrants, preventing travel to Turkey and the EU, ensuring the application of the established bilateral readmission provisions and swiftly returning economic migrants to their countries of origin.”

The problem is obvious again: in order to determine who is an economic migrant, an asylum procedure must be completed. How many asylum applications can Greece deal with, and how long will this take? Germany with a huge administration has been able to issue 32,000 decisions on asylum in October. If Greece takes too long this will not have any “immediate effect.”

There is also the – vague – promise to improve the condition of Syrians now in Turkey:

“Equally, they welcomed the intention of Turkey to adopt immediately measures to further improve the socio-economic situation of the Syrians under temporary protection.”

Finally, there is the commitment every EU country makes in every similar statement, from Greece to Croatia to Slovenia, fighting people smugglers. It is not clear why Turkey should be more successful in this endeavour than any other states in South East Europe, in particular since everyone who travels to Greece and is stopped is able to try again until it works.

 

A deal that works: Merkel Plan 2.0

In recent weeks ESI analysts presented an alternative plan in many European capitals (Berlin, Brussels, Stockholm, The Hague, Vienna, Warsaw). This was an elaboration of the Merkel Plan which ESI published on 4 October:

  1. The European Council on Sunday invites the European Commission to begin right away the process of lifting the Schengen visa requirement for Turkey. This legal process will necessarily last a few months. It should hold out a concrete promise to Turkish citizens: “If Turkey implements the existing readmission agreements with Greece and Bulgaria in full and agrees to take back all new arrivals to these two countries from 1 January 2016, and implements a concrete set of other priority conditions from the roadmap till March, then Turkish citizens will be able to travel without a visa to the EU from 1 April 2016.”
  2. Turkey’s new asylum authority will start to issue decisions in response to asylum claims already in December. Following this Greece declares that it will consider Turkey a safe third country from 1 January 2016.
  3. Turkey and Greece, with support from others (Frontex, the European Asylum Support Office and other EU countries) prepare logistically for Greece to send back refugees to Turkey after 1 January 2016.
  4. Germany, Austria, Sweden, the Netherlands, France and other countries in a coalition of the willing commit to take large contingents of Syrian refugees directly from Turkey. The process of identifying refugee families will begin on 1 January 2016. The first refugees will leave Turkey in parallel to the first readmissions from Greece in early 2016.
  5. If this readmission to Turkey proceeds as planned, the Justice and Home Affairs Council and the European Parliament will vote in March in favour of lifting the visa requirement for Turkish citizens. The decision becomes effective on 1 April 2016.
  6. The EU and Turkey immediately conduct a joint needs assessment to provide assistance to the Syrian refugees in Turkey, with a focus on ensuring education for all school-age children (currently 500,000 out of 700,000 Syrian school-age children do not go to school). They identify the number of teachers needed, where they can be found, which buildings to use for classes, which equipment and textbooks are necessary, and how much all of this will cost. EU assistance will be visible to the Turkish public. In parallel Turkey will propose a gradual opening of the labour market to Syrians who enjoy protection in Turkey.

 

[1]             European Commission, Report on progress by Turkey in fulfilling the requirements of its visa liberalisation roadmap, 20 October 2014.

[2]             Data provided to ESI by the Hellenic Police.

[3]             European Commission press release, State of Play: Measures to Address the Refugee Crisis, Member States’ financial pledges since 23 September 2015, communicated as of 27 November 2015.

[4]             European Commission press release, EU-Turkey Cooperation: A €3 billion Refugee Facility for Turkey, 24 November 2015.

Interview with Gerald Knaus on "Quer". Photo: ESI

Interview on refugee issue on German TV

Enlargement 2.0 – The ESI Roadmap Proposal (Belgrade presentation)

A crisis of trust

The ESI Roadmap Proposal for Enlargement

Belgrade presentation, November 2014

The ESI future of enlargement project is supported by ERSTE Stiftung in Vienna

 

Every year the European Commission publishes its Enlargement Strategy. The 2014 Enlargement Strategy, presented in  October, starts out on a very optimistic note with the following sentence:

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This assertion raises questions, though. How does the Commission measure the credibility of enlargement policy? For whom is enlargement policy more credible today than five years ago?

Here is a reality check. Eurobarometer surveys in 2008 and 2013 show growing opposition to enlargement in every single EU member state: old and new, rich and poor, those hit hard by the global economic crisis in 2008 and those relatively unscathed.

Enlargement has never been less popular in the EU than now. The 2013 Eurobarometer survey shows that an absolute majority of EU citizens oppose further enlargement (52 per cent). Opposition is stronger among euro area respondents (60 per cent). This table shows the significant lack of support for enlargement:

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What is even more striking is the overarching TREND in the past five years: a dramatic drop in support across the EU. .

The fall in support for enlargement is sharpest in traditionally pro-enlargement countries such as Italy (where opposition to enlargement increased by 22 percentage points) or Spain (21). Post-2004 EU members, who initially were less sceptical, are rapidly catching up with pre-2004 members. The changes in Cyprus, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are dramatic.

Here opposition to enlargement has increased most since 2008:

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What about the second claim in the opening sentence: that the European Commission has enhanced the TRANSFORMATIVE power of enlargement policy?

Here is a second reality check. Every year the European Commission assesses progress and the state of alignment with EU rules and norms (the acquis) in its annual Progress Reports. It examines for all accession countries whether the alignment in each policy area is “advanced”, “moderate” or at an “early stage.”

Here is what the Commission found in 2013:

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 And here is what the European Commission found for 2014:

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Comparing these two tables, based on the European Commissions’ own assessment of progress, on the TRANSFORMATIVE impact of the enlargement process, we see the following:

First: there is very little change anywhere.

Second: in the case of Macedonia the Commission finds regression (from 9 to 8 “advanced” chapters).

Third: in the case of Serbia – which also opened accession talks in January  – the Commission finds no change at all!

Either the EU process is not actually transformative or the current way in which the European Commission measures transformation in its progress reports is inadequate. Or both. Regardless, the most important documents written by the European Commission to show transformative impact of the enlargement process do not support the sunny view of the Strategy paper.

There is a second striking sentence in the 2014 Enlargement Strategy:

Belgrade - ESI Roadmap Proposal - Nov 2014 - Gerald Knaus_Seite_02This is a standard claim, made by EU member states and by the European Commission. On 7 June 2014 the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, made a video podcast on Western Balkan enlargement in which she asserted: “There are very clear criteria for the steps needed to move closer to the EU. In the end it is up to each country whether they pass through this process rapidly or not.” The message: “the process is fair. It depends on merit. It depends on you.”

Is this claim convincing?

Look again at the 2014 assessment by the Commission. Macedonia, which became an EU candidate in 2005, is ahead of all other Balkan countries when it comes to its alignment with the acquis according to the European Commission. And yet it is behind Montenegro, Serbia and Albania when it comes to accession. Clearly this is NOT about merit.

Is Macedonia an exceptional case? Hardly. As bilateral vetoes have proliferated, the political nature of every single step in this process has become ever more obvious.

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In fact, the problem of merit and fairness goes very deep.  Today the accession process is like a stairways with more than 70 steps: to obtain candidate statue, to open accession talks, to open (34 or 35) chapters, to close chapters; then ratification and finally accession. (Note: one could count many more small steps, including the adoption of screening reports, etc …)

For each step up thes estairways there are 28 gatekeepers, EU member states, which have to agree to EACH step taken. And these 28 decide on the basis of political criteria, not merit. Whether Turkey opens Chapter 23, or when and whether Albania, Serbia or Montenegro are allowed to open a chapter, or Macedonia starts accession talks, are all political decisions.

This image captures accession today: a stairways that may well appear to be a stairway to nowhere, given the many veto points and the huge potential for obstruction.

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There is one more striking fact about this stairways that renders the current debate on accession puzzling.

Half of these stairs are linked to the “opening of chapters”.  In fact, much of the political debate on enlargement today is focused on chapters: how many get opened, and when.  But few people – including experts or journalists – ever ask themselves: what is the POINT of “opening a chapter”? What does it mean? What does it do?

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 Take the case of Turkey, the most advanced country in its talks, having started in 2005, as an illustration. In 2014 Turkey had 14 open and 18 closed chapters (we leave two chapters, where the Commission provides no assessment of alignment, out of this table here – chapters 23 and 34).

As the following table – based on the Commission’s own assessments in its progress report – shows, there is no causal or other link between the alignment (state of progress) in a sector and whether a chapter is open or closed. This means: whether a country has many or few open chapters is no indicator of where it is in terms of its preparedness for EU accession.

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What is no less surprising: opening chapters is not only not a yardstick of progress; it is also not an incentive to make more progress in the future. This is what the European Commission found in Turkey in 2013: there was MORE progress in closed than in open chapters in Turkey during the year.

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This raises a basic question: why is it so important to open chapters? Having many open chapters does not indicate progress towards meeeting EU standards. Having many open chapters also does not make future progress more likely.

A recent study of EU-Turkey relations made the following  strong recommendation:

“In the light of the above it is stated that opening the chapters Energy (15), Judiciary and Fundamental Rights (23), Justice, Freedoms and Security (24) and Foreign, Security and Defense Policies (31) would facilitate Turkey’s drawing a robust road map under the EU umbrella at a time when the country faces three successive elections.”

This is the conventional wisdom, repeated in conference after conference, article after article. However, it is not explained HOW opening a chapter is crucial for either the EU or for Turkey; why a Turkish citizen, or a sceptical EU member state parliamentarian, should consider this significant.

In summer 2013 there was a heated debate in Turkey and in the EU whether to open a new chapter after many year in which none were opened: Chapter 22 (regional policy). There were many statements by politicians about how important this would be. Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s chief negotiator, explained in April 2013:

“Since no new chapter has been opened, I have kindly asked our prime minister to slow down everything until a new chapter is opened. I thank him for having done that. Now the process for the opening of the regional policies chapter has begun.”

Foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu stated:

“No postponement or review of the decision to open it is possible. As we said before during the reform follow-up group meeting, we want not only the chapter 22 to open but also the chapters 23 and 24.”

The German government, on the other hand, insisted on delaying the opening until after summer 2013. In the end chapter 22 was formally opened in the autumn.  Leaders – and international media – spoke about this as if something significant had happened (Die Welt:  “Accession talks gain new momentum”)

In fact, following a meeting – the so-called Intergovernmental Conference – when it was declared that Chapter 22 was now “open”, nothing else happened. There was no additional meeting. There was no additional funding. There was no additional impetus for reform. The “opening” was political theater, for one day. It had no link to merit, criteria, or progress. Ultimately it made no difference.

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We can now  easily understand how all these dynamics create a deeply frustrating and dysfunctional process.

In the face of growing public opposition, many EU leaders have given up defending enlargement policy. Seen from Brussels, Berlin, Paris or The Hague, the current group of candidates are problematic. They are poorer, have weaker institutions and are more politically polarised than any previous group of applicants. This has created a vicious cycle. As enlargement loses popularity in EU member states, EU leaders try to reassure their voters that the process is stricter than ever. Yet as the hurdles to be jumped appear more and more arbitrary, candidate countries find it harder to take difficult decisions in pursuit of a goal that is increasingly distant and uncertain. The stairways approach makes vetoes extremely easy. And the public debate is focused on whether chapters are open or closed, not on whether reforms are taking place.

This is not enlargement “fatigue”, suggesting a temporary state of exhaustion. It is a chronic ailment, which is getting worse.

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And at the heart of this frustration are the annual Progress Reports. As ESI found, discussing these in many European capitals during the past year, few people, even EU foreign ministry officials, read these carefully. The reports are not doing a convincing job measuring progress. They do not allow for comparisons between countries in any operationally meaningful detail. They do not educate the public about what needs to happen. Above all they do not make real transformation – if it happens – visible also to sceptics. It is as if everyone – reformers in candidate countries, publics, policy makers in the EU – is proceeding through thick fog.

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Such a proces increases frustrations. We have called this the Godot effect. It is today most pronounced in Macedonia and Turkey. However, unless the process change we may anticipate that something similar could soon happen in Montenegro, Serbia and Albania, as cynicism increases. In Bosnia and Kosovo, there is today frustration, cynicism and apathy before any EU accession process has even begun. Bosnia has not yet applied for accession. Kosovo is not even able to apply.

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 So what is to be done? In order to answer this question let us imagine a very different approach to defining and assessing progress; one that is strict, fair and transparent. A process as follows:

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To imagine such a process is not to daydream. For this is how the Commission has acted for years in the context of visa liberalisation.

In this crucial area ALL countries in the Balkans were given precise visa roadmaps with dozens of benchmarks. These roadmaps set out clearly what the Commission expected. They listed all individual criteria. There were no short cuts. And these roadmps, based on the acquis, were essentially the same for all countries, and thus progress easily compared.

The Commission then organised a serious monitoring and assessment effort. This involved experts from the Commission and from member states.  Based on their findings detailed progress assessments were issued.

The whole process was developed by the Directorate General for Home Affairs together with the Directorate General for Enlargement. And it worked. It inspired many reforms. It made it possible to see where real reforms happened … and when they did not. Above all it convinced even sceptical EU interior ministers that when the Commission did find progress they could trust it.

 

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In fact, in October 2014, while DG enlargement published its regular progress reports, another part of the Commission also published a detailed document on progress made in the field of visa liberalisation by Turkey. It offers a clear, readable, strict and fair description of where Turkey stands. Each benchmark is assessed, using the following categories:

 

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The result of such a strict, fair, and meritocratic process in the case of the Western Balkans was to inspire civil servants. It was also clear to them what needed to be done. All countries were assessed based on the same criteria. It was possible to make transformations visible; even in special grade reports, that ESI issued at the time, based on the Commission experts’ assessments:

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We can compare the thoroughness of this process with the current assessment of progress in key chapters in the Progress Reports.  Let us take just one subject, Chapter 18 (Statistics).

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Look at the current assessment of progress in the field of statistics in Turkey, which has been in this process the longest. In 2014 the European Commission published just four short paragraphs, about half a page, on this chapter in the Turkey progress report.  A reader does not understand from this how far Turkey has come, what remains to be done to reach EU standards, or in what specific areas most efforts are still needed. Nor can one see how Turkey compares to other candidates.

This is surprising for many reasons:

1. The recent experience with Greece. Following the discovery of just how unreliable key statistics provided by the National Statistical Service of Greece (NSSG) had been before 2010, a new statistical agency, ELSTAT, was created. This was a priority for reform for the EU!

One might expect the EU to be just as keen to see all Balkan countries reach EU standards for all their key statistics, as soon as possible, and well before actually joining the EU, in order to be able to develop a credible track record.

2. The importance given to “economic governance” in the accession process. Without reliable economic statistics, from GDP per capita to employment, from the FDI stock to exports, discussions of economic governance in progress reports are of little use; and any evidence-based policy making on the part of governments is very hard.

3. One objective of the annual progress reports is to assess whether a country is a “functioning market economy” or FU-MAR-E. How can this be done without comparable and solid numbers and statistics?

The sooner all accession countries reach EU standards in the field of statistics the better. Now imagine a scenario where the European Commission draws up a roadmap for Chapter 18, gives it to every country, and thus spells out what all the key benchmarks for a future EU member are … and then assesses the state of affairs against these benchmarks every year with the help of experts, in order to produce a document on statistics that is similar to the recent October report the Commission produced for the Council and the European Parliament on visa liberalisation.

 

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The current EU accession process has not halted the erosion of trust in the policy since 2008. It has not led to measurable transformative impact in key policy areas. The visa roadmap process, on the other hand, has inspired and encouraged change. It has also – crucially – made this change visible and credible to sceptical outsiders.

 

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Given these experiences ESI proposes to the European Commission to put the idea of chapter roadmaps to the test as soon as possible.

We propose that DG enlargement develops four pilot roadmaps, and then assess progress in these four fields similar to the way the Commission has done with visa roadmaps; for all accession countries,  already in the 2015 Progress Reports: Statistics (fundamental for economic governance), Procurement (central to progress in the rule of law and the fight against corruption), food safety (key to attract FDI in a vital sector) and Financial Control.

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Giving such chapter roadmaps to all seven countries, and assessing them by reference to these benchmarks in 2015, would mark a small but very important improvement in the current process of writing progress reports.

One additional effect would be similar to the regional competition we have seen in the field of visa liberalisation. Or to the debates on public policy triggered by the Paris-based OECD with its regular publication of results of its PISA tests in the field of education.

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ESI has recently presented these ideas in many capitals. Here are five of the most frequently asked questions concerning this  CHAPTER ROADMAP PROPOSAL

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The first question often posed concerns incentives. In the case of visa roadmaps, we hear, there was a clear “reward” at the end of the road: visa liberalisation. This was popular with the broader public. Would elites and civil servants in accession countries be equally motivated to carry out reforms in fields such as Statistics or Procurement, without a similar tangible reward?

We believe that this question puts the issue of incentives upside down.

When elected governments say that they want their countries to join the EU as a matter of national interest – and embark on a many-years-long process that requires work, focus, human resources, and that remains uncertain until the very end – they state that they have an intrinsic motivation to carry out reforms. The notion that the EU should “bribe” governments to incentivise them to carry out reforms on this path is wrong. Governments that need to be bribed in such a blunt manner should never apply, and simply risk being exposed as uninterested in the EU accession process. Then it depends on publics and voters who they will react.

The EU acccession process is more similar to a young football player being offered a place at La Masia, the famous football school of FC Barcelona; or to a budding entrepreneur admitted to Harvard Business School.

People do not get paid to submit themselves to rigorous training at these institutions of excellence. Instead they have to work hard. If they do not have intrinsic motivation this will become apparent very quickly, but in a fair manner.

However, no one would think that a young footballer might just as well practice all by himself in the street, rather than benefit from the training system of La Masia; or that a great business school has nothing to offer to those who come prepared to work hard. What such centers offer is excellent coaching by experts, precise feedback, a system of instruction that will make those who take part better at what they say they want to do in the future.

Of course there are also more specific rewards: prestige and certificates to validate progress. In the case of chapter roadmaps more FDI – if investors believe that institutions and rules are becoming more predictable.  One can even imagine more donor aid for those who perform best. But the real reward is for leaders – and civil servants, who do most of the extra work and are not paid more for it – to feel that what they do is taking their countries forward; that is makes sense for their country and for them professionally. For this incentives must be intrinsic.

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Can such chapter roadmaps be done for every chapter? No. We believe that they cannot be done for some chapters where there is no clear acquis (Chapter 23 or Chapter 30).

But this does not mean it cannot or should not be done for most chapters.

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Does such a roadmap-approach encourage superficial reforms? Not if the roadmap – like visa roadmaps – is done well, and measures not just laws but institutions and performance. Then it becomes a very good tool also to assess progress over time and track records.

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Is this a dramatic change in enlargement policy?

No. Member state do not lose their veto. They still have to agree – unanimously – to give candidate status, to open accession talks, to open chapters, to close chapters. However in the meantime the Commission helps these students get better … and provides member states with more information and feedback to assess how accession countries do.

Such an approach allows the European Commission to do better what it is already doing and already has a mandate for:  assess annual progress according to the Copenhagen criteria in all countries in a strict and fair manner, provide feedback, and encourage reform.

Such a change puts the substance of actual reform back at the heart of the accession process. This is  win-win situation for everyone.

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Not everything will be in such roadmaps. Some reforms only make sense just before accession. The aquis changes, so it also makes sense to adapt roadmaps every two years. It is always possible for member states to insist on additional reforms as preconditions for them allowing a chapter to be closed (or even opened, though this can both happen at the same time later; Croatia actually opened and closed a number of chapters all in the final year of its talks).

These chapter roadmaps would likely capture 95 percent of reforms needed in key areas.  This would be a flexible tool (fishery benchmarks might be of different importance in landlocked Macedonia than in Turkey), but in the end the idea is that the acquis is the same for all future members, as they are all heading for the same horizon.

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The past five years have seen a steady erosion of trust in enlargement across the EU and in many accession countries.

Turkey has been negotiating since 2005 and has not yet opened even half its chapters.

Macedonia is a candidate since 2005 and has not yet been given a date even to open talks.

Albania became a candidate this year, but has been warned already that it could be years away from opening accession talks.

Bosnia and Herzegovina concluded its negotiations on the Stabilisation and Association Agreement in 2008 without seeing the agreement enter into force.

To an increasing number of people in accession countries the current process appears to be a stairway to nowhere. And yet, reforms in all these countries are in the interests of their citizens. They are also in the interests of the EU. As the new Commission reassesses how it can best promote reforms, we believe it should seriously look at what has worked in recent years.

We believe that improving the work that goes into the progress reports does not constitute a change in enlargement policy, and that therefore the European Commission can act on its own to improve what it is already doing. However, such a change does alter the way the Commission works. It is a real challenge, and it makes sense to implement it gradually, testing it along the way. It remains to be seen whether the new European Commission is able to carry out such reforms.

For the sake of all Europeans, we can only hope it is.

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Earlier presentation:

See also:

Bona-fide is not enough – the visa story of two Turkish professors

by Gerald Knaus and Alexandra Stiglmayer

ESI Whitelist Project

 

Sometimes one true story is the best way to explain a complicated problem: here is the  story of Schengen visa, MMB , MB and the need for change.

If you have your own stories and want them to be know, please contact us: istanbul@esiweb.org

 

Last December, the EU and Turkey finally launched a visa liberalisation process. If everything goes as planned, Turkish citizens will be able to freely travel to EU and Schengen countries in three years.

The road towards this launch has been bumpy. Now is the time for confidence-building to make sure that the process accomplishes its stated goal, as  ESI suggested in its paper “Trust and travel. Easing the visa burden for Turks in five steps last February.

Why this is so important is illustrated by the following true story.

 

 

MMB is a respected professor of International Relations and European Integration (she is a Jean Monnet Chair) at Sabanci University in Istanbul. We recently met at a conference in Berlin. Her husband is a professor of Economics and the former dean of the faculty at which MMB teaches.

Recently MMB was invited to speak at a NATO seminar in Italy on 15-17 May. She needed a new visa. So, on 29 April, she went to the intermediary agent, IDATA, which Italy had hired to handle visa applications.

(Nowadays most Schengen country consulates no longer receive visa applications themselves, but use intermediary agents who collect the applications, bring them with the passports to the consulates, later pick up the passports with the visas and hand them back to the applicants. The costs for this service, which saves consulates of lot of work, are charged to the applicants – MMB had to pay 30 Euro for it, in addition to the 60 Euro for the visa itself.)

For her visa application, MMB had filled out the application form and put together the necessary documentation: the invitation letter signed by a NATO general, her flight ticket and hotel booking, excerpts from her bank accounts showing that she has a regular income and sufficient funds for the trip, evidence of her social security payments in Turkey, a current certificate from the civil registry, all the current contracts for her work with the European Commission, evidence that she is an affiliated professor at the University of Stockholm as well as copies of her previous passports that are full of Schengen visas. In her current passport too, she has an expired two-year multiple-entry Schengen visa, a 10-year multiple-entry visa for the UK and a 10-year multiple-entry visa for the US.

To any reasonable person, all this leaves no doubt that MMB is a person that travels a lot for professional reasons, has never abused any of her visas, and has a good job and family in Turkey. There is no risk that she would not come back and prefer to become an illegal migrant in Italy. In fact, MMB was hoping this time to get a 5-year multiple-entry Schengen visa.

Then the IDATA clerk explained to her that the NATO invitation letter is not valid unless the person issuing the invitation – a NATO general – has his signature validated and certified by a notary. MMB was reluctant to ask the NATO general for this. So she had to sign a statement declaring that she “knowingly” submitted “an incomplete application”.

For nine days, she did not receive any information about the status of her application despite regular phone calls to IDATA and the Italian consulate. Then the consulate was very helpful and informed her that she had been given a multiple-entry visa for three years. In the end she received her passport with the visa only four days before her flight.

An isolated case? MMB’s husband MB did not fare any better. He was invited to a seminar at Freie Universität Berlin on 28 April.

Germany uses the same intermediary agent like Italy, IDATA. So MB went to the IDATA office well in advance of the seminar, on 20 March, equipped with the same long pile of documents that MMB had to submit. However, the IDATA clerk was not satisfied. He asked him for civil registry extracts for his entire family, including his parents and his child. MB got these and delivered them to IDATA.

The saga continued. This time, the clerk was not satisfied with the evidence of income and social security payments that MB had submitted. The evidence was an attestation from the university. The clerk wanted to have an attestation from the Turkish social security provider, covering the previous 20 years.

If MB had not promised a colleague in Berlin that he would come, he would have given up, but due to this promise he decided to spend another day on the application, getting the certificate and bringing it to IDATA.

In the end, he received only a 3-month Schengen visa, so he faces the same trouble again in three months. Like MMB, he travels a lot and has previous Schengen visas and a 10-year UK and a 10-year US visa in his passport. But this apparently did not make any impression on IDATA.

If two respected and busy professors who travel extensively and have a good income are treated in this way, how are ordinary citizens treated? What about the promise of EU member states “to promote the regular mobility of bona fide travellers between Turkey and the EU and its Member States” given in December 2012? It cannot get more “bona fide” than in MMB’s and MB’s case, and their experience, in MMB’s words, has been “horrendous”.

When it comes to less well-established Turkish citizens, the situation is worse. In the end, wrote MMB, “it is not me that is the issue here, I always get a visa, but my colleagues, my students they all suffer.” She posted a tweet about her experience.

“My students and younger colleagues immediately responded saying this is a major problem for them. There are many academicians who cannot go to meetings abroad because their visas are either rejected or not prepared in time. This is a key concern for young scholars. Also, consider this: most of these young researchers are earning relatively little money, and each application costs around 300 Turkish lira – about 100 Euro – which is a lot considering their monthly income.”

 

 

EU member states ought to have systems in place that make failures such in MMB’s and MB’s cases impossible, and they need to work on making the visa burden for all Turkish citizens as light as possible. In our paper “Trust and travel. Easing the visa burden for Turks in five steps (24 February 2014, we recommended that EU member states commit to five goals to support the visa liberalisation process:

  1. 1. REJECTION RATES – GOAL LESS THAN 2 PERCENT

Reject as few Turkish visa applications as possible, striving to achieve a rejection rate of 2 percent or less. Some EU member states (Greece, Italy, Hungary) already achieve this.

  1. 2. LONG TERM VISA – MORE THAN 90 PERCENT

Issue at least 90 percent of the visas as long-term multiple-entry visas valid 3 to 5 years. Member states currently vary on this issue greatly.

  1. 3. REDUCE COSTS AND EFFORT

Allow proxies to submit visa applications on behalf of Turkish applicants; waive the visa fee of 60 Euros in as many cases as possible and consider removing it altogether; waive individual document requirements wherever possible.

  1. 4. SOLVE THE ERASMUS PROBLEM

Commit to issuing long-term visas for all Turkish students and researchers in time for the beginning of their studies and projects.

  1. 5. TRANSPARENCY

Make all improvements visible and advertise them; start to provide information on all aspects of visa policy so that progress can be easily monitored.

It is time that improvements become visible, and not that the visa application procedure becomes more difficult.

In the end MMB still felt grateful to the Italian Consulate in the end. When contacted they were prompt, efficient and helpful. Without their help the application would certainly have taken even longer.

Enlargement reloaded – ESI proposal for a new generation of progress reports

Does EU enlargement policy change countries? Can it inspire the people who have to push through deep and complex reforms? Does it help ensure respect for fundamental rights?

What really are the minimum political standards that candidates will have to meet? What is, in the European Commission’s view, a “functioning market economy”?

What is the future of the Directorate General for Enlargement, the department of the European Commission in charge of this policy? And what is the future direction of the DG for Enlargement’s actions, given the unpopularity of the current policy in certain key member states?

 

Measuring alignment?

2013 EU assessments of countries according to the 32 chapters assessed. When it comes to the state of alignment, Turkey is ahead, despite many chapters being blocked. Macedonia is second, despite not being allowed to negotiate. Serbia is ahead of Montenegro. In October 2013 Albania was the very last. For the origins of the assessments in the 2013 reports see at the bottom of this text. The effects of producing such tables in a credible way is the subject of this text.

For the score this conversion used is:  Advanced = 3 points, Moderate = 1 point, Early = 0 points (Source: EU progress reports – see below!). Since Bosnia and Kosovo have different types of progress reports they are not included here.

 

This week in Brussels I gave a presentation on the future of EU enlargement policy. The occasion was a strategy brainstorming session of the senior team of DG for Enlargement in Brussels, made up of some 60 people. The meeting followed similar presentations to policy makers in Berlin, Stockholm, Zagreb, Skopje, Brussels, Istanbul, Paris, and Rome. While I spoke in Brussels, my colleague Kristof presented similar ideas to Croatian Foreign Minister, Vesna Pusic, in Zagreb.

I was asked to be provocative. So I started with a personal encounter from a few weeks ago.

During a late night conversation in Zagreb, a journalist from a very respected European paper in a large EU member state told me that in his view “DG Enlargement should be shut down.” The argument, (which I had heard before in large EU member states I know well) was as follows:

None of the countries in the Balkans (or Turkey) are today even close to meeting what should be the EU’s demanding standards. They have weak institutions, corrupt administrations, create few or no jobs, and have incredibly polarised political environments. Nor are they moving in the right direction at a credible speed in overcoming these problems to make real change likely in the next decade or two. The EU has already admitted too many weak countries. Against this background having a DG for Enlargement creates constant pressure to repeat an earlier mistake. “Can you really imagine Albania in the EU any time soon?” And if you cannot, what then, is the point of a DG for Enlargement?

A few years ago such a view would have been very radical. In some European member state parliaments it is now on the way to becoming the new mainstream.

Of course, there will continue to be a DG dealing with enlargement for the foreseeable future. There is a policy, there are commitments, and there is inertia. The “European perspective” still produces real results. It is an “anchor.” It is leverage, at a low cost to the EU.

However the challenge posed by skeptics calls for a credible answer to the question of whether or not the basic premise of accession policy – that it changes countries for the better, and for good – is valid. And does the European Commission offer credible assessments of progress, or is it condemned by bureaucratic self-interest to be a cheerleader for badly prepared countries? (Or, to avoid this criticism, does it end up being seen as unfair in accession states?)

We accept that there is a crisis of credibility of the process. We are also convinced that there is an opportunity to substantially improve the impact of what is being done today by the EU in accession countries without changing the basic policy. The focus must return to the concrete and visible results in accession countries –  “concrete” and “visible” for skeptics as well.

Enlargement policy needs to mobilise people or it fails. Without the mobilisation of policy makers, civil servants, civil society, and interest groups in accession countries, the kind of changes that have to happen will not happen.

It is here that we encounter a problem with the way many measure accession progress today: the language of “counting chapters opened.” Any complex process generates technical language, bureaucratic procedures, and jargon for those most involved. In the case of enlargement, however, the technical language has crowded out a focus on what makes this policy worthwhile and inspiring.

Recently I asked some of my Turkish friends what they thought the EU should do next in Turkey. Their answer: “Open Chapter 23. Then the EU can seriously discuss fundamental rights with Turkey.” This is how very serious and committed people talk, full of good intentions. And yet, it is puzzling. For when one asks “what do you believe happens after a ‘chapter is opened’ that makes any real progress more likely? Is there evidence that ‘chapter-opening’ produces change?” people pause. Rightly so, as I showed in my Brussels presentation. There is in fact no evidence that “chapter opening” produces change – Turkey shows this best in recent years – that progress in “un-opened” chapters is faster or slower than in “opened” ones. A country can make all the reforms and then “open and close” all chapters at the very end (Croatia did this in many key policy fields). It can open many chapters and make no progress for years.

See this table. Note that it is based on the Commission’s own assessments in the 2013 progress reports (For more on these assessments see the ESI scorecard further below):

The argument is not against the need to have “chapters,” which define separate policy areas, from consumer protection to public procurement or waste management. These are useful conventions to deal with the vast range of European standards and policies.

However, what really matters is that the EU spells out clearly, publicly, fairly, and strictly – and in a way that is understood by the broadest possible public in Albania, Turkey, Serbia or Macedonia – WHAT the basic and fundamental rights and standards should be in a country that wants to join. And it should do this regardless of whether a “chapter” is opened (or a member state decides to veto this, as has happened and may well continue to).

This is what accession is about from the very beginning. To allow for a “veto” against focusing on key issues makes no sense at all. What does make sense is a focus on closing “chapters,” which in any case only happens at the very end, and in turn depends on the nature of the reforms being done!

So by all means, open Chapter 23 with Turkey (and every country), if this is possible. And yes, it was good to “open a chapter on regional policy” (Chapter 22), last summer. It was a “signal” that there was still a process in motion. But in the end, it was also a strange response to the drama of the Gezi protests and their subsequent repression. Yes, there is a process, as the EU stated, but one that does not address WHY opening Chapter 22 is an answer to the question most observers were asking about the state of democracy. How did opening a chapter on regional policy change anything meaningful in Turkey in 2013?  What has it changed since this was done?

The bureaucratic steps designed many years ago to make enlargement manageable are here to stay: the categories of potential candidates, opening one of 35 chapters, opening benchmarks, closing chapters. The bureaucratic process is not the problem. Nor is the fact that at every step, 28 member states have a veto. This is simply a fact of life.

However, what can and must happen is that the European Commission – and supporters of enlargement – see this ladder and the more than 70 steps for what it truly is: an instrument to many more worthwhile ends. And it is only those ends that matter to skeptical EU member states and to people in accession states: more vibrant public debates on political issues, particularly on television. Less discrimination of minorities, whether LGBT or religious minorities. More transparent spending whenever public agencies procure goods and services. A credible strategy to ensure safe food. Environmental inspectorates that ensure that dangerous waste is dealt with appropriately. Less polarised politics. A credible judiciary. Rules for businesses that allow fair competition. And many more…

Take another example. There is an esoteric debate, reminiscent of what scholars discussed in the cathedral schools of medieval Europe, on what is a “functioning market economy” for the European Commission. And in every progress report there is one section on “economic criteria.”

The EU insists that all accession candidates have a functioning market economy before they join: this makes intuitive sense. But the European Commission does not explain how it recognises one. Turkey has a “functioning market economy,” according to the EU. Serbia does not. One could have many long debates on whether a country that is not creditworthy has a functioning market economy (Greece? Cyprus?). Is this status linked to growth or its absence? (Was Finland a functioning market economy in 1988, stopped being one in 1993, and became one again in 1995?)

In fact, I recently learned that some people are trying to take the Commission to court (!) to disclose what its (secret) yardstick for measuring the functionality of an economy is. But it seems a misleading and irrelevant debate. If the Commission WOULD say that Albania will have a “functioning market economy” in 5 years, would members of the Bundestag or the Dutch public believe it? What does withholding this label do for Albania and the EU?

Would it not be better to assess countries by a few clear, measurable, and meaningful outcomes – the results of good economic policy? And to rewrite the currently unreadable and incomprehensible economic sections of progress reports so as to trigger regular and widespread public debates on economic fundamentals?

This could be done by defining and explaining a few key indicators for non-economist readers. Take the employment rate – how many people of working age have worked at least some in the past week, as measured by a credible standardised labor force survey? (Counting people employed in subsistence agriculture – how many of them are among the “employed?” This is also hugely interesting.)  Then one looks a bit closer: if employment is low, is this because few young people work? Or few women?

An accession candidate should focus on these questions, and a progress report by the commission should highlight them, which it does not currently do. In the 2013 Macedonia progress report the authors gave TWO employment rates: 40.7 percent on page 16 and 48.2 percent on page 61, in the same report! (It obviously did not seem central to the authors).

A country that has a low employment rate and yet aims to convince the EU that its economy can, after accession, “withstand competitive pressures” should be asked to show – over the period of the accession process – that it can address this issue seriously, and with at least some success. This is a debate worth having and renewing every year.

The same could be said for other outcomes of economic policy: what about exports per capita, the stock and flow of FDI, the qualifications of the future work force (as measured by the OECD’s PISA tests, which amazingly, not all candidate countries are currently required to participate in), or the ability to spend EU grant money on development?

For most of these outcomes of economic policy there are robust indicators that allow comparisons over time and between countries.  For some the European Commission can easily construct them. Indicators work best if they are completely plausible, and intuitively make sense to a broad public. And there need not be 20. The World Bank’s Doing Business reports started with five in 2004. Better five that every reader can understand, than twenty that are esoteric and hard to grasp.

The same is true for policy areas covered in the chapters. In my Brussels presentation I suggested doing for each chapter – and for each country – what the EU has done in the recent visa liberalisation process: produce one document that clearly sums up what the core requirements are under each policy area (or chapter) that every accession candidate should meet. They could look like visa liberalisation roadmaps (see here examples)

“Core” requirements means that these roadmaps for chapters need not include everything, but rather most of the important criteria – requirements that countries only need to meet shortly before actual accession can be excluded. These requirements should focus on OUTCOMES:  not just to pass a law, but also to “pass a law, have a credible institution and implement it.” And these requirements should be assessed annually in the progress reports for all countries, so they can be compared. There is no reason not to do this in all 7 countries, including Albania and Montenegro, Serbia and Kosovo. This would trigger very healthy debates and competition everywhere. In this way the annual progress report of the European Commission, its sections on “economic criteria” and on the policy areas in the 33 chapters, would become readable, interesting, and useful. It would address all four strategic objectives:

  • Fairness: Regular fair public assessments of where accession countries really stand in terms of meeting EU criteria.
  • Strictness: Strict public assessment of where accession countries are failing or even falling behind. The more concrete and specific the assessments are of what is missing, the better.
  • Clarity: Any EU assessment needs to be understood, not just by a handful of experts, but by the broader interested public in accession countries and in the EU. (Sections that are incomprehensible to an interested non-expert should be cut and rewritten).
  • Comparability: Any assessment should encourage two types of comparisons: between the situation in accession countries and EU standards, and among accession countries. Comparisons help both the fairness and the strictness of assessments.  They encourage friendly competition and mutual learning from best practice.

ESI believes that the regular progress reports – published annually by the European Commission on every applicant country already now – are the obvious and best instrument to achieve all of these objectives. Improving them is rightly at the center of any debate on how to increase the impact and credibility of current enlargement policy.

We are convinced that, building on what the Commission is already doing, progress reports could easily have the same impact on reform debates and reforms in accession countries as the regular OECD Pisa reports have had. Since 2000 these have reshaped the global debate on education.

This would help the Commission to keep (or regain) the trust in its assessments, which it needs to be effective.

In the end, the success of the commission in the field of enlargement cannot be measured by formal criteria: how many countries have started accession talks or how many chapters have been opened is not what matters most. What matters is closing chapters. And this can only happen after reforms are implemented. This means what matters now is what best helps the reform process.

 

BRUSSELS PRESENTATION

Below are a few slides from my Brussels presentation. In the next weeks we are planning to organise many more presentations across Europe. We integrate the feedback into the next presentations and policy papers. If you have thoughts on this, please do let us know: you can write directly to g.knaus@esiweb.org.

One reason PISA tests capture the public imagination: they make it possible to compare results between countries and over time. But the ranking is not a gimmick for the media: the results also allow detailed analysis, such as what kind of schools are doing better than others? Are there differences between reading and science results? Between girls and boys? How significant are the discrepancies between the best and the worst performing schools?

A notable strength of PISA is that it focused on results, not perceptions. DG enlargement needs the same. A credible yardstick – a gripping, readable annual report – would achieve all of these goals. The progress reports should be this:


This requires that all parts of the reports be read, understood, and taken seriously by at least the following members of a focus group: the civil servants who work on it, political leaders in government and opposition, business people who care about EU accession for what it means for them, critical journalists, civil society activists, and interested followers of the news, who might be tempted to look for a translation of the report.

See below a possible focus group in Macedonia: this IS the readership of these reports in any country.

At the same time EU member states need to see what is being done.

There are three parts to progress reports, where different ways of assessment are needed:

Political criteria: A focus on outcomes and areas where countries fall short. This is NOT likely to be usefully measured in quantitative terms, but best by reference to minimum standards, (which need not be low, but should be plausible). More on this in the next ESI reports.

Economic criteria: A focus on plausible OUTCOMES of good policy, a mere handful of key and obvious indicators.

Alignment with EU policies and regulations in sectors: The production – for the 33 chapters – of roadmaps would help because it would allow turning implementation into scorecards. This WAS done for visa liberalisation:

The key is how to identify core objectives in each policy field. The expertise for most or all of the policy fields currently exists in the Commission, as does the text.

This would then also allow comparisons. And this in turn would inspire debates, allow leaders to focus, and allow the media to analyse … it would put the results of the process – not the formal opening of closing of chapters – at the center of attention.

Rethinking the methods of assessment would also allow countries to make real efforts to try to beat low expectations… and to know that this would be recognised. It would allow certain ministers in a government to stand out. This is what happened to Bosnia during the visa liberalisation process in the summer of 2010. (See below the scorecard before and after this real effort).

At the same time, this would allow critical member states to understand in detail HOW the European Commission arrives at its assessments.

All this leads to a few concrete suggestions for EU accession future progress reports:

  • Precise formulations (even more so than today, though in 2013 this was already done)
  • In assessing “alignment” (or “preparation”) consider moving towards terms that more clearly indicate the required end-state: “Fully met,” “Largely met,” and “Not yet met.”
  • Build each chapter assessment on publicly available individual chapter roadmaps, which also list the indicators used to assess implementation.
  • Add scorecards for each chapter
  • Report on all seven countries in the same way so they can be compared.
  • Consider adjusting chapter roadmaps every three years in light of the changing EU acquis.

Scorecard legend for the table below:

Green: alignment is/preparations are advanced / well advanced / rather advanced / relatively advanced; high / sufficient level of alignment)

Yellow: alignment is/ preparations are advancing / moderately advanced / on track

Red: alignment is/ preparations are starting / at an early stage / not very advanced / not yet sufficient. / A country has started to address its priorities in this area.

Alignment with the acquis – per chapter – 2013 Progress Reports

 

Chapter

Turkey

Mace-donia

Serbia

Monte-negro

Albania

1: Free movement of goods

3

3

1

3

1

2: FoM for workers

0

0

1

0

0

3: Right of establishment, freedom to provide services

0

1

1

0

1

4: Free movement of capital

0

1

1

1

1

5: Public procurement

1

3

1

1

1

6: Company law

3

1

3

1

1

7: Intellectual property law

3

1

3

3

0

8: Competition policy

1

3

1

1

0

9: Financial services

3

1

1

1

1

10: Information society & media

1

1

1

1

1

11: Agriculture & rural development

0

1

0

0

0

12: Food safety

0

1

1

0

0

13: Fisheries

0

1

1

0

0

14: Transport policy

1

1

1

3

0

15: Energy

3

1

1

1

0

16: Taxation

1

1

1

1

1

17: Economic & monetary policy

3

3

1

1

0

18: Statistics

3

3

3

1

1

19: Social policy & employment

1

0

0

0

0

20: Enterprise & industrial policy

3

1

1

0

1

21: Trans-European networks

3

3

1

1

0

22: Regional policy, structural instr.

1

0

1

0

1

23: Judiciary & fundamental  rights

24: Justice, freedom & security

0

3

1

1

1

25: Science & research

3

1

1

1

0

26: Education & culture

1

1

1

3

1

27: Environment & climate change

0

1

0

0

0

28: Consumer & health protection

1

1

1

1

0

29: Customs union

3

3

1

1

1

30: External relations

3

1

1

1

1

31:Foreign, security, defence policy

1

3

1

1

1

32: Financial control

1

0

1

1

1

33: Financial & budgetary prov.

0

0

0

0

0

 

 

Detailed assessment by the European Commission (2013)

Chapter

Turkey

Macedonia

Serbia

Montenegro

Albania

1: Free movement of goods

The state of alignment in this chapter is advanced.

Preparations in the area of free movement of goods are advanced.

Preparations in the area of free movement of goods are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of free movement of goods are relatively advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

2: Freedom of movement for workers

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are still at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Alignment with the acquis is still at an early stage.

Preparations in the area of freedom of movement for workers are at an early stage.

3: Right of establishment and freedom to provide services

Alignment is at an early stage.

In the area of postal services, the level of alignment is advanced. There is not yet full alignment with the acquis, particularly as regards mutual recognition of professional qualifications, free movement of services and establishment.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

Substantial efforts are still needed to align the legislation and implement the acquis on mutual recognition of professional qualifications.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

4: Free movement of capital

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations are on track and gradual harmonisation of the regulatory framework for payment systems is under way.

Alignment in this area is moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

5: Public procurement

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of public procurement are advanced.

Alignment in the area of public procurement is moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of public procurement are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the field of public procurement are moderately advanced.

6: Company law

Turkey is well advanced in this area.

Preparations in the area of company law as a whole are moderately advanced.

Alignment in the area of corporate law is well advanced.

Preparations remain moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

7: Intellectual property law

Alignment with the acquis is advanced.

Preparations in the field of IPR are moderately advanced.

Alignment in the area of IPL is advanced.

Preparations are advanced.

Preparations are not very advanced.

8: Competition policy

Turkey is moderately advanced in this area.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Alignment in this area is moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

Preparations for the revision of state aid legislation are at an early stage.

9: Financial services

Preparations in the area of financial

services are advanced.

Alignment with key parts of the acquis on financial market infrastructure has not yet been achieved. In the area of financial services, alignment with the acquis is moderately advanced.

Alignment in the area of financial services is moderately advanced.

The level of alignment is moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

10: Information society and media

Preparations are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are on track.

Alignment with the

acquis in this area remains moderately advanced.

Preparations are on track.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

11: Agriculture and rural development

Preparations in the area of agriculture and rural development are at an early stage.

Preparations remain moderately advanced.

Alignment with the acquis remains at an early stage.

Alignment with the acquis is at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are not very advanced.

12: Food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations in the area of food safety and veterinary policy are well on track. Preparations in the phytosanitary area are at an early stage.

Preparations in the area of food safety, veterinary and phytosanitary policy are moderately advanced.

Preparations remain at an early stage.

Preparations remain at an early stage.

13: Fisheries

Alignment in this area is at an early stage.

A large proportion of the fisheries acquis is not relevant as the country is landlocked.

Preparations in the area of fisheries are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations are not very advanced.

14: Transport policy

In the area of transport, Turkey is moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Serbia is moderately advanced in its alignment with the acquis in this area.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Preparations in the area of transport are not very advanced.

15: Energy

Turkey is at a rather advanced level of alignment in the field of energy.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of energy are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of energy are moderately advanced.

Preparations are not very advanced.

16: Taxation

Preparations in this chapter are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of taxation are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of taxation are moderately advanced.

Montenegro’s alignment with the acquis is moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

17: Economic and monetary policy

Turkey’s level of preparedness is advanced.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Serbia is moderately advanced.

Alignment in the area of economic and monetary policy is moderately advanced.

Preparations are not yet sufficient.

18: Statistics

Alignment with the acquis is at an advanced level.

Preparations in the field of statistics are advanced.

Serbia is advanced in the area of statistics.

Preparations in the area of statistics are moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

19: Social policy and employment

Legal alignment is moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Serbia has started to address its priorities in this area.

Montenegro has started to address its priorities in this area.

Preparations in the area of social policy and employment are not very advanced.

20: Enterprise and industrial policy

Turkey has a sufficient level of alignment in this chapter.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are on track.

A strategic effort to promote skills at all levels in sectors where Montenegro has significant trade with the EU will be important to improve competitiveness and ensure preparedness for competitive pressures and market forces within the Union.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

21: Trans-European networks

Alignment in this chapter is advanced.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Preparations in the area of trans-European networks are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of trans-European networks are not very advanced.

22: Regional policy and coordination of structural instruments

Preparations in this area are

moderately advanced.

Preparations in

this area are not very advanced.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

23: Judiciary and fundamental rights

24: Justice, freedom and security

Alignment in the area of justice and home affairs is at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Serbia is moderately advanced in the area of justice, freedom and security.

Alignment with the acquis in the field of legal migration, asylum and visas is still at an early stage.

Preparations in this field are advancing.

25: Science and research

Turkey is well prepared in this area.

Preparations in this area are on track.

Preparations in the area of science and research are on track.

Preparations in this area are well on track.

Preparations are not sufficiently advanced.

26: Education and culture

(No assessment of the state of alignment.)

Preparations in the areas of education and culture are moderately advanced.

Preparations for aligning with EU standards are moderately advanced.

Preparations are advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

27: Environment and climate change

Preparations in these fields are at an early stage.

Preparations in the field of the environment are moderately advanced while preparations in the field of climate change remain at an early stage.

Priorities in the fields of environment and climate change have started to be addressed.

Preparations in these areas are still at an early stage.

Preparations in the fields of the environment and climate change are at an early stage.

28: Consumer and health protection

Preparations in this area are on track.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area remain moderately advanced.

Preparations in these areas are moderately advanced.

Preparations are starting.

29: Customs union

The level of alignment in this area remains high.

Preparations in this area are advanced.

Preparations in the area of the customs union are well on track.

Preparations in the field of customs union are moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

30: External relations

There is a high level of alignment in this area.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of external relations are moderately advanced.

Preparations in the area of external relations are on track.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

31: Foreign, security and defence policy

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are well advanced.

Preparations in the area of foreign, security and defence policy are well on track.

Preparations in the area of foreign, security and defence policy are on track.

Preparations in this field remain on track.

32: Financial control

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations in this area are moderately advanced.

Preparations are moderately advanced.

33: Financial and budgetary provisions

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations are at an early stage.

Preparations in this field are at an early stage.

Preparations in this area are at an early stage.

Preparations in the area of financial and budgetary provisions are at an early stage.

Turkish Visa Liberalisation Breakthrough in 2013? An interview

 

 

 

You have been involved in a major project titled “The White List Project” on visa liberalization for the Western Balkans and been credited for contributing to its success. Would you tell us about it?

I have lived and worked many years in Bulgaria and in Bosnia and Herzegovina and I remember well the frustrations that the visa requirement brought, particularly for young people. For two decades governments and civil society in those countries complained about visa to the EU.

However, when we started our White List Project in 2006 we realized that you never obtain anything on such a sensitive issue by complaining. To lift visa you need enough votes in the EU Council to change the visa regulation! To get the votes you need to address the fears that EU ministers have about what happens after visa are lifted. If they feel that nothing bad will happen, if they feel they can trust a country, they will take the political risk.

And so we started to do research on how to reduce the risk. We even formed an advisory group of former interior ministers of big EU countries – Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom. When they said that there was only limited risk their colleagues would listen. And we started reaching out to public opinion, and hundreds of articles were written about the White List Project. And in the end this approach worked.

Will it also work with Turkey?

The latest I learned last week is that there is now a proposal on the desk of Foreign Minister Davutoglu that could work: a proposal how to respond to a recent offer by the EU to open a visa dialogue on liberalisation. It has the backing of key Turkish officials and experts, but would also be acceptable to the Commission. So a breakthrough is still possible this year. My hope is that there will be a visa liberalisation process starting in 2013.

The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in the Demirkan vs. Germany case that Turkish citizens may not travel to EU countries without a visa to receive services. With this verdict, do you think the ECJ closes the doors for visa-free travel for Turks in the European Union member states?

No, I do not think so. One door has been closed by the ECJ: it is now clear that it will not be possible to obtain visa free travel for Turks through the courts. But another way, the one taken in recent years by all other countries of South East Europe, remains open, and that is to get rid of visa through a process of negotiations between Turkey and the EU, a “visa dialogue.” The sooner this process starts now, the better.

The Balkan countries received in 2008 roadmaps which involved a lot of conditions for visa liberalization. How successful they have become in fulfilling the expectations?

The image of many of these Balkan countries in 2008 in some EU member states was very bad. They were seen as a source of all problems: illegal migration, organized crime, instability. Each of these countries is small but remember: there were then an estimated 700,000 illegal immigrants in the EU just from small Albania. No other region generated as many refugees to the EU in recent decades.

So the key challenge for the Balkans was to build trust, and the way to do so was through reforms, yes, but above all through contacts with EU counterparts, in the police, in customs, in interior ministries, on the working level. And so the Balkan governments made fulfilling the requirements of the visa roadmap a top priority. And then they surprised skeptics. When German or French interior ministry officials came to Albania or Macedonia as part of the visa dialogue to check what was happening, and left impressed by what they had seen, this was worth more than ten speeches on visa by a Balkan foreign minister.

What is the importance of the roadmap given to Turkey by the Council of the European Union at the end of last year toward a visa-free regime?

There is absolutely no reason that exactly the same happens in Turkey as happened in the Balkans if a visa liberalization dialogue would finally begin, which it has not yet! Sometimes I am told in Ankara that Turkey is different from the Balkans: it is bigger, there are more prejudices in the EU, etc …But in reality Turkey is different in a way that is good for Turkey: the per capita GDP in Turkey is higher than in allBalkan countries which had the visa lifted, including Bulgaria and Rumania. And the EU allows already now more than 1 million holders of Turkish green passports visa free travel and there are no problems.

The real difference between the Balkans and Turkey is how governments approach the visa dialogue. The Balkan countries took the roadmap, set out to fulfill the conditions, and made very effective advocacy to convince skeptics in Berlin and Paris and Brussels. Until now Turkey feels that the EU cannot be trusted and hesitates to even sit down. The other difference, of course, lies in the results of these two approaches: today all Albanians, Macedonians, Serbs travel without a visa.

What developments have occurred since the Council of the European Union gave the roadmap to Turkey?

More time has been lost. In the case of the Balkans the visa liberalization dialogue lasted 2, at most 3 years before visa were lifted. Turkey was presented a roadmap in summer 2012, but there is still no dialogue. The main reason is that Turkey does not want to sign a readmission agreement with the EU, something all Balkan and all East European countries have done. A readmission agreement commits Turkey to take back from the EU illegal immigrants who cross into the EU through Turkey.

There is a fear in Ankara that this might involve tens of thousands of people. But this is just wrong. We did a detailed study of all readmission agreements in the world that the EU has made and the total of all readmission cases every year for all of them together are a few hundred. Even if there would be 4,000 readmission requests to Turkey in a year – which I do not believe – this would not be a problem. Turkey arrested tens of thousands of illegal migrants inside Turkey every year and hosts hundreds of thousands of Syrians. In addition for the first three years the readmission agreement with the EU does not require Turkey to take back more illegal immigrants than it wants to, there is a three year transition phase! So our recommendation is: Turkey ratifies this agreement, starts the visa dialogue, sees how many requests come, sets its own limit on how many it will accept. It should also set the EU a deadline: if by the end of 2015 we do not have visa free travel, we will cancel the readmission agreement.

Turkey was also expected to fulfill some conditions for visa liberalization including biometric passport, integrated border management and signature of the readmission agreement. Where does Turkey stand in regards to what it’s been expected to do?

There is a lot that Turkey has done, and there is a lot that remains to be done. Take integrated border management. It is in Turkey‘s own interest to control its borders well. There is a lot of experience on this in the EU. I just returned from Finland, which has a very long land border and a sea border with Russia, and a very experienced Border Service. Turkish border officials know the Finnish system, they studied it, but so far they were not able to carry out the same reforms. Why? Because it involves changing the roles of the police, customs and especially the armed forces which still do a lot of the land border control in Turkey. And no institution likes to give up any influence. So the result is that Turkey has good plans but still has a very inefficient system. This can change, easily. If Albania or Serbia can reform border management, Turkey can do it for sure! But it requires a political push from above. It must be a priority.

In an article titled “The Future of European Turkey” on June 17, written on the Gezi protests, you expressed concern about Turkey’s future and its EU integration. Would you share those concerns with us?

It is normal for a democracy to see protests over big construction projects: this happens in Germany, in Austria, even in Sweden. Sometimes, when police intervenes to stop protests there are clashes also in European countries. I have lived in Berlin, where this happens every 1 May. What shocked European observers about the handling of the Gezi protests was the unnecessarily aggressive response by the police. Even on 1 May you do not see the whole center of Berlin under a huge cloud of tear gas for weeks. What also surprised many observers was an official rhetoric that described all these protesters as “terrorists.”

When such events happen in the middle of the tourist season in the center of one of the most visited cities in Europe it is obvious that media interest will be huge and the Gezi protests were headline news for weeks. And if read what was written in European papers you see a consensus, from the right to the left, from Turkey’s oldest friends to the biggest skeptics, that this was very badly handled by the authorities.

What do you observe about Turkish government’s and Turkish citizens’ attitudes about their beliefs in regards to a common European future?

I see a paradox.

On the one hand there is a tradition in Turkey of distrust of outsiders, rooted in history, in the education system and in political rhetoric. Remember, already in the late 1970s there was a great opportunity for Turkey to join the European Community, together with Greece. Then it was the left and the right, Ecevit and Erbakan, who were opposed to submitting even an application. This skepticism can be found across the political spectrum, then, and now.

But on the other hand you have a new Turkey: the new middle class that wants their children to learn foreign languages, that wants to travel, the new entrepreneurs who want to expand and compete and upgrade their technology, the tourism sector that is now world class and sees many more opportunities, and millions of students who want to do what European students do, get on a cheap flight and visit other European countries for a few days. In all these groups people are also frustrated with the EU, but they see that in many ways Turkey is already part of an integrating Europe. Europe is where most foreign direct investment, most tourists, and most ideas come from, and Europe is where most Turks who live abroad live today. It is Europe, not Syria or Egypt, that is the stable partner. So there will be a common European future, because there already is a common European present. The real question is whether the new generation of Turks can experience the rest of Europe easily, which is why the visa obligation is such a problem. If there are more contacts between people there will be more trust. This happened between Poland and Germany in the past two decades, and it can happen between Turkey and the EU as well

 

To find our more: recent ESI publications on the Turkish Visa issue:

  • Turkish tourists and European justice. The Demirkan ruling and how Turkey can obtain visa-free travel (26 September 2013)
  •  

  • ESI call to action: After the Demirkan ruling: launch visa liberalisation dialogue now (24 September 2013). Also available in Turkish: Demirkan kararının ardından: vize muafiyeti süreci şimdi başlamalı
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  • ESI briefing paper: On the eve of judgement day – the ECJ and the Demirkan case (22 September 2013)
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  • ESI report: Cutting the Visa Knot – How Turks can travel freely to Europe (21 May 2013).Also available in Turkish: Vize Kördüğümünü Çözmek – Türkler Avrupa’ya Nasıl Serbestçe Seyahat Edebilir?
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  • Newsletter: Cutting the Visa Knot – How Turks can travel freely to Europe (21 May 2013)
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  • Happy Anniversary? EU-Turkey relations at age 50 – An appeal (12 September 2013)
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  • ESI’s Who’s Who in the Turkey visa debate – Information and contacts (12 September 2013)
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  • ESI turkey visa page
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    Newest ESI report on Saving Visa Free Travel

    Dear friends,

    2013 could be a big year for visa free travel in Europe, with important decisions upcoming concerning Turkey and Moldova. It could also be a disastrous year for the cause of free travel if visas are reimposed on the Western Balkans.

    It is appropriate, therefore, that the first report ESI publishes in 2013 – on 1 January to be precise – deals with this very question. You will find the full report on our website later this week, but if you want an advance copy right away let me know (write to g.knaus@esiweb.org). Below you find for now the executive summary and some of the most interesting findings as exerpts from this report. We also recently presented these findings to senior officials in Rome, Berlin, Brussels and Stockholm.

    In the meantime the whole ESI team and your Rumeli Observer wish you a happy and productive 2013!

    NEW ESI REPORT – 1 January 2013

    Saving visa-free travel – Visa, asylum and the EU roadmap policy

    Executive Summary

    Since the visa requirement was lifted for Western Balkan countries in 2009, there has been a sharp increase in claims for political asylum by citizens of the region. Barely any of these applicants qualify for asylum. Rather, they are benefitting from national
    asylum rules that provide relatively generous benefits during the application process.

    Since 2010, EU leaders have demanded that Balkan governments take measures to stem this tide of asylum seekers. In fact, the problem lies with ‘pull factors’ inside the EU. Now, EU policymakers find themselves under increasing pressure to address the problem directly by suspending visa-free travel for Western Balkan countries. Such a draconian measure would undermine the credibility of the EU’s whole approach to visa liberalisation – not just in the Western Balkans, but also in Moldova, Kosovo, Turkey and the Ukraine. But it is by no means the only solution available.

    In the world of justice and home affairs, clear-cut solutions to complex issues are generally hard to come by. There are inevitable trade-offs to be made between controlling borders and allowing the free movement of people; between protecting individual liberties and safeguarding the public. When it comes to visa liberalisation in the Balkans, however, there is a clear solution that reconciles the concerns of all the different constituencies involved. The solution is to make it less attractive for those who clearly do not qualify for asylum to submit speculative or bogus claims.

    Under EU rules, all member states provide asylum seekers with financial and material support while their applications are being processes. But there is a sharp difference between two groups of countries: those that take many months to process their asylum
    claims, and those that dispose of them within a few weeks. It is the lengthy processing times found in Germany, Sweden and other EU members (up to 8 months with appeals) that acts as the magnet for unjustified asylum seekers. The EU members able to deal expeditiously with asylum claims face a significantly lower numbers of applications.

    This paper proposes two possible solutions. One is to address the problem at the national level. Those states that have seen a sharp increase in applications from the Balkans could radically shorten their procedures. They could follow the example of Switzerland, which has recently introduced a 48-hour procedure for applicants from safe European countries like the Balkans. The other option is to tackle the problem at the EU level. The EU should label countries that have completed a visa liberalisation process as “safe countries of origin”, allowing for lighter and quicker processing procedures. We believe that the ideal response would be to pursue both solutions in parallel.

    Such a solution would not close off the rights of genuine refugees to apply for and receive asylum. The statistics reveal that countries with shorter procedures in fact accept a higher proportion of their asylum applications. It would, however, help to weed out speculative claims and bring down the costs for European taxpayers. It would also safeguard visa-free travel for the Western Balkans, which has proved a critical step in giving hope and a sense of direction to a troubled region on the EU’s borders.

    Update: the full report is now available on our website

    Op-ed in Süddeutsche Zeitung on visa free travel for Turkey: Ein Fahrplan für die Reisefreiheit

    SZ, Gerald Knaus - Ein Fahrplan für die Reisefreiheit - 26 April 2012

    Ein Fahrplan für die Reisefreiheit

    Die Visumspflicht der Europäischen Union für Bürger der Türkei ist Unsinn. Sie sollte endlich fallen

    Von Gerald Knaus

    Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26. April 2012

    Jedes Jahr bemühen sich Hunderttausende Türken um ein Visum, um in die Europäische Union reisen zu können; im Jahr 2010 waren es mehr als 625000. Meist erhalten sie Visa, die zur einmaligen Einreise berechtigen und nur für wenige Tage gültig sind; manchmal wird ihnen die Einreise gänzlich verweigert. In jedem Fall sehen sie sich und ihr Land ungerecht behandelt. Zu Recht.

    2008 begann die EU einen Prozess zur Liberalisierung der Visabestimmungen für die Staaten des westlichen Balkans. Diesen Ländern überreichte sie sogenannte Roadmaps, Fahrpläne. Diese definierten eine Reihe von Reformen als Vorleistung für die Reisefreiheit: Fälschungssichere Dokumente und ein besserer Grenzschutz gehörten dazu wie Asylgesetze nach EU-Standards und die Achtung der Menschenrechte. Auch sollte die Zusammenarbeit lokaler Sicherheitsbehörden mit jenen aus den EU-Staaten enger werden, umorganisierte Kriminalität, Menschenschmuggel und illegale Migration besser bekämpfen zu können. Am Ende wurde die Visumpflicht für Mazedonien, Serbien und Montenegro, Albanien und Bosnien aufgehoben. Mit der Türkei jedoch verweigert die EU bislang selbst Gespräche darüber, wie Türken die Einreise zu erleichtern wäre.

    Dabei wäre es, folgt man der Logik, höchste Zeit, auch der Türkei eine Roadmap wie vor vier Jahren den Balkanländern zu geben – das Land ist schließlich mit der EU durch eine Zollunion und durch die Beitrittsverhandlungen bereits auf das engste verbunden. An diesem Donnerstag treffen sich die EU-Innenminister in Luxemburg. Sie sollten dort ihre bisherige Visumpolitik gegenüber der Türkei überdenken.

    Die derzeitige Politik hat zwei große Schwächen. Zum einen läuft sie den rechtlichen Verpflichtungen der EU zuwider und wird von immer mehr Gerichten in Frage gestellt – vom Europäischen Gerichtshof und in den EU-Mitgliedsstaaten, auch in Deutschland. Zum anderen verhindert sie eine Sicherheitspartnerschaft im beiderseitigen Interesse.

    Beginnen wir mit der Rechtslage. Im August 2011 ordnete das Amtsgericht im oberpfälzischen Cham die sofortige Freilassung eines türkischen Staatsbürgers aus der Haft der Bundespolizei an. Der Betroffene verfügte über kein Visum und war aus Tschechien eingereist, um in Deutschland ein Auto zu kaufen. Das Gericht befand, dass der Betroffene sich auf die Visumfreiheit gemäß der sogenannten Standstill-Klausel berufen könne.

    Das Gericht bezog sich auf ein Zusatzprotokoll zum Assoziationsabkommen zwischen der damaligen Europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft und der Türkei von 1963. Es besagte, dass “die Vertragsparteien untereinander keine neuen Beschränkungen der Niederlassungsfreiheit und des freien Dienstleistungsverkehrs einführen werden”. Der Autokauf des Türken sei eine erweiterte Dienstleistung, urteilten die Richter. Als das Protokoll 1973 in Kraft trat, gab es übrigens in elf der 27 heutigen EU-Mitgliedsstaaten keine Einreisebeschränkungen für Türken, auch nicht in Deutschland. Diese wurden erst 1980 eingeführt, unter Verletzung der Standstill-Klausel.

    Im Februar 2009 entschied der Europäische Gerichtshof, dass die türkischen Lastwagenfahrer Mehmet Soysal und Ibrahim Savatli als Dienstleister kein Visum benötigten, um nach Deutschland einzureisen. Das Münchner und das niederländische Verwaltungsgericht Haarlem stellten 2011 in zwei getrennten Verfahren fest, dass türkische Touristen und Geschäftsleute kein Visum benötigen. Im Januar 2011 sprach das Amtsgericht Hannover einen inhaftierten Türken frei, der ohne Visum eingereist war. Im Juni 2011 kam ein Gutachten des Wissenschaftlichen Dienstes des Bundestags zu dem Schluss, es dürfte durch die Entscheidungen des Europäischen Gerichtshofs endgültig geklärt sein, “dass türkische Staatsangehörige visumfrei in das Bundesgebiet einreisen und sich ohne Aufenthaltstitel dort aufhalten dürfen.”

    Solche Entscheidungen häufen sich derzeit vor deutschen und niederländischen Gerichten. Auch Leyla Demirkan, eine türkische Jugendliche, die ihren deutschen Stiefvater und ihre türkische Mutter besuchen wollte, als diese wegen einer Krankenhausbehandlung des Mannes in Stuttgart war, erhielt kein Visum von Deutschland. Ihr Fall, der nun vor dem Europäischen Gerichtshof verhandelt wird, könnte die Visumspflicht bald gänzlich zu Fall bringen.

    Experten wissen das, doch in vielen europäischen Innenministerien wird dies lieber verschwiegen. Dort hält man die visafreie Einreise von türkischen Staatsbürgern für ein Sicherheitsrisiko – auf jeden Fall sei sie den Bürgern schwer zu vermitteln. Das sind wenig rationale Argumente, wie überhaupt die derzeitige Politik der EU angesichts der Sicherheitsinteressen Europas irrational ist.

    Erst vor kurzem haben die europäischen Innenminister wieder einmal darauf hingewiesen, dass die Sicherung der griechisch-türkischen Grenze eines der größten Probleme der Schengenzone ist. Im vergangenen Jahr wurden dort mehr als 61000 illegale Einwanderer aufgegriffen – vor allem Afghanen, Algerier und Somalier. Und keine Türken. Tatsächlich verlassen inzwischen mehr Türken Deutschland, als Menschen aus der Türkei ins Land kommen. Oft vergessen wird auch, dass das Durchschnittseinkommen in der Türkei über dem aller jener Balkanländer liegt, deren Bürger bereits ohne Visum reisen dürfen.

    Die EU braucht keine Visumpflicht für türkische Bürger. Sie braucht stattdessen die enge Zusammenarbeit der Türkei mit der EU-Grenzagentur Frontex, um die illegale Einwanderung nach Griechenland zu stoppen. Würde die Europäische Kommission der Türkei eine Roadmap wie den Staaten des Westbalkans anbieten, wäre dies ein Anreiz für eine solche Zusammenarbeit. Von einem Liberalisierungsprozess mit klaren Vorgaben könnten alle Seiten profitieren. Die angestoßenen Reformen würden auch die Menschenrechtslage in der Türkei verbessern und das Vertrauen zwischen der Türkei und der EU wiederherstellen. Dies ist einem Szenario vorzuziehen, in dem der Europäische Gerichtshof den Mitgliedsstaaten die Aufhebung der Visabeschränkungen schlicht auferlegt.

    Es geht um gemeinsame Sicherheitsinteressen und um den Respekt vor bestehendem Recht. Beides ist im Interesse der EU-Innenminister. Und vor allem im Interesse der Bürger Europas.

    Gerald Knaus, 41, ist Vorsitzender der Europäischen Stabilitätsinitiative (ESI) und leitet das Visa Roadmap Turkey Projekt von ESI und der Stiftung Mercator.

    PDF download: Süddeutsche Zeitung, Gerald Knaus, “Ein Fahrplan für die Reisefreiheit” (26 April 2012)