Western Balkans and Turkey: new opportunities for EU enlargement
By Linas Linkevičius and Štefan Füle
Few months ago the European Union grew again. Croatia became the 28th member state. This new enlargement showed once again that the EU project does not stop, nor slows down. It also underlined the credibility of the enlargement policy under which the countries are admitted after they delivered on the necessary criteria. The agenda of the Lithuanian Presidency in this semester is a good proof of the determination to keep this policy going.
Despite different dynamics in the enlargement countries we could register very positive developments. The historic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo is of crucial importance since it contributes to the overall stability of the region and ensures that both, Serbia and Kosovo, can proceed on their respective European paths. It is also probably the most striking recent example of the transformative power of the EU accession process and a clear signal that even the most difficult decisions can be made if there is strong motivation and political will. After a ground-breaking agreement on normalisation of relations, both parties now meet regularly under the aegis of the EU to solve outstanding practical issues to the benefit of citizens on both sides. And the EU has started the screening process of first two very important chapters with Serbia in September and launched negotiations on a Stabilisation and Association Agreement with Kosovo on 28 October. However a recent attack on the EULEX staff in Kosovo, whose perpetrators we expect to be swiftly brought to justice, also shows how much the EU engagement is needed.
Negotiation process with Montenegro gained new momentum and two important negotiating chapters in the accession process may be opened in the upcoming months. We are also making efforts to get the accession negotiations with Turkey back on track. Albania has ensured a much improved democratic conduct of the recent elections and a peaceful transition of power advancing its chances to get the candidate status. To sustain momentum for reforms, we have continued the high level dialogues with Vardaska and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Of course, the EU accession is not taking place in a vacuum. In the current economic climate, citizens of both, member states and aspirant countries, are increasingly concerned about the impact of the on-going enlargement. And the management of enlargement process itself reflects these concerns.
Negotiation process is based on strict conditionality, where each step forward is dependent on tangible progress achieved on the ground. It is not about ticking boxes in check lists but about creating a solid track record in areas such as fundamental rights and freedoms, rule of law, good governance and democracy. Strengthening of the rule of law, improving the capacity to tackle organised crime and corruption, progress in the application of human rights and democratic standards and freedoms brings direct benefits to the citizens across Europe.
The enlargement is a success story of the EU, reflected also in the recent Nobel Peace Prize. However, if we want to be both serious and realistic we should not be tempted to paint an unrealistically rosy picture. The examples mentioned earlier demonstrate that progress is possible where there is a political will to focus on reforms and where EU agenda is considered to be a national priority. We are well aware of the fact that not everywhere in the region, and not in all areas, the reforms move ahead at the desired speed. Much more needs to be done, but this should not discourage the EU enlargement process, which has a huge transformative leverage. The threat here is not the enlargement as such, but rather the reform fatigue.
The opportunities to move decisively forward on the path to European integration are clearly visible and they are equally open to all aspiring countries. It is up to these countries, to make these opportunities a reality to the benefit of their citizens, as Croatia did. We remain fully committed to support them along the way, knowing that this is as much about our joint success as it is about the credibility of the enlargement as one of the key policies of the EU.
The Greek presidency of EU must be annulled, because the kleptocratic alliance of Pasok mafia and Nea Democratia mafia cannot be trusted. The freakish government of Greece stole my computer, my files, and my life in cold blood! Basil Venitis, venitis@gmail.com, http://themostsearched.blogspot.com, @Venitis
Most Western Europeans believe all Balkan countries belong to the Orient. The Balkan peninsula is characterized by stupidity, corruption, laziness, and incivility. Diogenes would not be able to find an honest man in all Balkans. A Greek-level political corruption permeates the Balkans. Bismarck predicted a world war would ignite because of some damned foolish thing in the Balkans. Indeed, World War I was triggered when a Serb assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo.
Balkanokleptocrats have made their culture of corruption the norm of the character of the Balkans. The debasement of the Balkan soul is due to huge political corruption, statist propaganda, and religulous brainwashing. Plato and Aristotle asserted that different regimes produce different types of human beings, and regimes ought to be judged by the character of their citizens. In the Balkans, the growth of interventionist welfare state has damaged personal responsibility and integrity, fostered dependence, undermined families, rejected freedom, and promoted corruption.
In the Balkans, the most corrupt area in Europe, political corruption is accepted as a normal thing, and most people rely on bribes, graft, sinecures, cheating, incivility, nepotism, cronyism, cancer of socialism, jingoism, iconolatry, perjury, lies, and kickbacks. The character of the Balkans is the opposite of the character of ancient Greece of Plato and Aristotle. The people of the Balkans were homogenized in corruption and stupidity while leaving together for two millennia under Romans and Turks.
Croatia's former Prime Minister Ivo Sanader was given a ten-year prison sentence for corruption charges. He became the highest-ranking official in Croatia to be sentenced for graft. Sanader was found guilty of accepting a 10 million euro bribe from Hungarian energy group MOL in 2008 and a 545,000 euro bribe from an Austrian bank in 1995. Sanader was prime minister of Croatia from 2004-2009. He resigned in the middle of his second term. In return for the bribes, MOL was given controlling rights in the privatization of Croatia's state oil company, and the bank was given help in brokering a loan.
Although Bulgaria has been a member of the EU since 2007, it has so far proved unsuccessful in carrying out requisite reforms and has been subject to criticism over the inefficiencies and corruption that plague its judiciary, parliament, and government. Bulgaria has come under increased scrutiny recently over the fact that the majority of 150 contract killings that have occurred in the country over the last decade have gone uncovered. Nor has a single top official been sentenced for corruption.
And organized crime, worth 10% of GDP, continues to play a significant part in the country's economy, putting off many potential foreign investors and ultimately strangling growth. A key quandary for Bulgaria is the existence of local oligarchs who have legal businesses but also dabble in tax fraud and are entangled in webs of corruption and illicit lobbying.
Greek businessmen abandon their shrinking home market with its uncertainty and high costs for lower taxes and cheaper labor in the Balkans and Cyprus. Cyprus, which offers European Union membership, strong cultural ties and is richer than Greece's Balkan neighbors, is benefiting most from the trend thanks to its low taxes, though labor costs are higher.
The fall of communism opened up a wealth of opportunities for Greeks in the Balkans, shown in the firms which have a major presence in Bulgaria's economy: from telecoms companies OTE and Intracom to construction firm GEK Terna and steelmaker Sidenor and cement maker Titan. Greek-owned banks, led by National Bank of Greece's UBB and EFG Eurobank's Postbank, control a quarter of Bulgaria's financial system and also have a major presence in Romania, Vardaska, Albania, and Serbia.
These big companies and others tapped the region's rapid growth, investing many billion euros in the Balkans, creating million jobs, and preparing the ground for the influx of smaller businesses. These will create more income and jobs in the Balkans, but the impact will be gradual and is unlikely to give a major short-term boost to economies which have boomed and bust and are only slowly recovering. In the Balkans, consultancies and law firms offering registration, legal and accountancy services to foreigners have mushroomed.
Bulgaria, along with Cyprus, boasts the lowest corporate tax rate in the EU at 10 percent and starting a new business is easy and cheap. Romania has a flat tax of 16 percent. Corporate tax in Greece is 30 percent, the minimum monthly wage is double the average in the Balkans, VAT is 23%, and regulation, bureaucracy, kangaroo justice, and political corruption are beyond control. Greece is a failed state.
Setting up business in the Balkans is not perfect. Bureaucracy can be mind-numbing, infrastructure creaky, professional skills in short supply, and graft is perceived as widespread throughout the region. Nothing moves without bribery. But for Greeks used to a relaxed Mediterranean lifestyle, spending time with friends and family and enjoying the climate, the Balkans offer one attraction that trumps other countries.
Romanian Premier Victor Ponta is rapidly dismantling the rule of law and increasing the flow of kickbacks. Ponta and his mafia have been engaged in a bitter power struggle with Romanian President Traian Basescu and his mafia. Using decrees that often contradict parameters delineated by the country's Constitutional Court, Basescu was suspended from his office at the beginning of July. Ponta's actions are very clearly a coup d'etat.
No rules are obeyed in Romania anymore. What we are currently experiencing is the battle between two mafias which are willing to do anything. Neither of them possesses legitimacy, but they are prepared to fight to the end for influence and for existence.
Ponta's three-party mafia, called the Social Liberal Union, is populated by a worrying number of kleptocrats who are engaged in corruption, abuse of office, or crime. Antonescu's National Liberal Party, for example, provides a political home to the oil magnate and billionaire Dinu Patriciu, who has successfully withstood years of investigations into corrupt privatization deals. Head of the insignificant Conservative Party, Dan Voiculescu, is a former Securitate employee who was instrumental in helping ex-Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu acquire hard currency. Now one of the richest people in the country, he owns the influential television broadcasters Antena1 and Antena3.
Most of politicians belonging to Basescu's Democratic Liberal Party (PDL) are suspected of corruption. Indeed, were Basescu to be voted out of office, corruption investigations into his past dealings could resume. An old real estate deal of his has come under suspicion and his role in the privatization of parts of Romania's shipping fleet has also yet to be fully exposed. Ponta calls Basescu a duplicitous scoundrel, a scorpion that kills everything around him, the biggest liar in Romanian history and a man without shame or honor.
Romania's Supreme Court made public transcripts of intercepted phone calls made by ministers and senior officials. The calls showed Ponta's government was planning to falsify electoral lists on a large scale: tens-of-thousands of people were to be declared dead and expatriate Romanians were to be taken off the lists. The Romanian judiciary has launched a probe into the manipulation of voter rolls.
Little progress has been made in reducing discrimination and abuses against Gypsies or finding lasting solutions for responding to the needs of refugees and internally displaced people. If the Balkan governments are serious about being a part of Europe, they should make sure their human rights records meet European standards. Accountability for war crimes in domestic courts and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) remains a key issue across the Balkans.
Gypsies and other ethnic minorities face discrimination and remain marginalized across the region. Serbian authorities evict Gypsies from informal settlements without adequate assistance for those affected. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, Gypsies remain barred by the constitution from running for high political office and the authorities made little progress in addressing the issue, despite EU pressure to carry out a binding 2009 ruling by the European Court of Human Rights.
Gypsies, Ashkali, and Egyptian minorities in Kosovo also face discrimination and marginalization, a situation exacerbated by continued deportations from Western Europe to Kosovo and the failure by local authorities to aid Roma and other forced returnees. EU intensifies calls on Serbia to stop the influx of asylum seekers, mainly Gypsies, or risk visa-free travel to EU.
Forced deportations without adequate assistance not only raise serious human rights concerns regarding those affected by returns but also increases the vulnerability of minorities in Kosovo, in particular Gypsies, Ashkali, and Egyptian. Western states should halt deportations of minorities back to Kosovo until it has demonstrated its ability to adequately support and reintegrate those already sent back.
There is little progress toward durable solutions for internally displaced people and refugees from the wars in the Balkans. Voluntary returns of refugees to their pre-war homes remain low. There are also concerns about the ability of countries in the region to host and fairly process asylum seekers from other countries. The United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR, indicates that defects in Serbia’s asylum system mean it cannot be considered a safe country of asylum, and expresses concerns about Croatia’s reception capacity, its low rate of asylum approvals, and its treatment of unaccompanied migrant children.
The bully of East Mediterranean declared a casus-belli against Greece
Turkey has a casus-belli against Greece, a fellow NATO member, over the issue of continental shelf! Turkey demands Greek oil under the Aegean Sea! Moreover, Charles Aznavour overheard Erdogan state that he hates Armenians and Greeks! No wonder, Turkey refuses to apologize for the Armenian genocide, the Pontian genocide, and the Cypriot genocide.
Turkey still occupies Northern Cyprus, killing Cypriots, bringing Turkish settlers to Northern Cyprus, destroying Christian churches, looting Cypriot property, and terrorizing all people. Some Turcokleptocrats will eventually go to Hague for crimes against humanity. The Cypriot genocide continues up to this moment.
Turkey, the casus-belli-bully, is the world’s largest prison of journalists, bloggers, and generals. Erdogan has outlined his course declaring democracy is a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off. His dictatorial mentality can already be seen in such steps as challenging the independent judiciary, fostering nonsensical conspiracy theories to jail his opponents, imprisoning countless journalists, and issuing preposterous fines against unfriendly media companies.
These autocratic ways are growing over time. After a decade of reasonably democratic rule, impending crises signal Erdogan’s moment to get off the streetcar of democracy. As the AKP bares its fangs, Turkey further rejects Occident and grows to resemble a repressive stagnant theocracy. Ataturk’s country is no more. There are currently 30,000 pending complaints against Turkey in the European Court of Human Rights concerning violations of various political and personal freedoms.
Turkey needs to end its use of overly broad antiterrorism laws to hold thousands of activists and journalists, who have spoken out or engaged in the non-violent promotion of Kurdish rights, in prolonged detention. Tight government control of appointments to the national human rights institution and ombudsman undermine confidence in potentially important oversight mechanisms.
Turkey’s restrictions on freedom of expression are evident both in its laws and in the pattern of prosecutions and convictions under these laws. Turcokleptocrats’ intolerance of dissenting voices, extending as far as criticizing television soap operas, and their willingness to sue for defamation perpetuates a chilling climate for free speech. The campaign of arrests have intensified against Kurdish political activists, as well as students, journalists, human rights defenders, and trade unionists.
Impunity for serious human rights violations by Turcokleptocrats remains a huge challenge. Investigations into police violence lag behind investigations into the victims. Despite a commitment to reduce domestic violence with a new law designed to protect women from violence, the police and courts repeatedly fail to provide effective protection for women who try to file complaints.
Turkey and Fourth Reich pretend they want to unite! To get rid of the deep state of Ataturk, Caliph Erdogan hoodwinks that Turkey is eager to be enslaved to Fourth Reich. But Turkey already has a free trade agreement with Fourth Reich that allows it to manufacture for tariff-free sale throughout the Fourth Reich market. Turkey has a remarkable 8% growth, while Fourth Reich is in depression.
Turkey has the nerve to hoodwink about joining EU, while declaring casus belli against EU and occupying by brutal force a part of EU! EU is just scared of Turkey, the casus-belli-bully, which has the second largest army in NATO. 80% of EU citizens and 70% of Turks oppose Turkey’s membership to EU. EU cannot afford a clash of cultures within its borders. Graecoroman culture and Islamic culture cannot mix.
Pretrial detention in Turkey is being used as a punishment without trial. Turkey abuses civil liberties under the pretense of shutting down terrorist organizations. Turkey’s terrorism laws aren’t being used against terrorists. They’re used against innocent military officers, journalists, academics, defense lawyers, and ethnic Kurds accused of imaginary pseudoterrorist conspiracies. All charges are attacks on free speech. These freakish abuses are compounded by the routine manner in which disgusting Turkish judges agree to deny defendants bail. Many of the accused innocents have been in jail for years, some for a decade, as they await trial. This amounts to routine summary punishment of the presumed innocent.
Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen is the most influential preacher of Islam in Occident. His followers have founded schools in 140 countries, banks, media companies, hospitals, insurance companies, universities, the largest Turkish newspaper Zaman, and the ruling party of Turkey AKP. The cemaat religious community educates its future leaders throughout the world in houses of light, a mixture of a shared student residence and a Koran school. Gulen is their guru, an ideologue who tolerates no dissent, and who is only interested in power and influence, not understanding and tolerance. Gulen dreams of a new age in which Islam will dominate Occident.
The houses of light are the foundation of the movement, where young Fethullahcis, followers of Gulen, are taught to become loyal servants. The residences exist in many countries, including Turkey, the United States, and Germany. There are two dozen in Berlin alone. The cemaat offers schoolchildren and university students a home, free of charge, and in return it expects them to devote their lives to hizmet, service to Islam.
Most civil servants are Fethullahcis. Gulen trained and supported them. When these grateful children assume office, they continue to serve Gulen. Fethullahcis hold ninety percent of senior positions in the Turkish police force! Fethullahci Erdogan was locked for six months in prison for publicly reciting a verse declaring the mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets - words considered by a court to be incitement to religious militancy. Now taking his revenge, CaliphErdogan has locked many thousands of Turks in prison!
Anyone who messes up with Erdogan, Gulen, or Kurdistan is destroyed. 200 innocent Turkish journalists are in jails, the highest incarceration rates for members of the news media in the world. 700 innocent Turkish military officers are also behind bars, wrongfully charged in a series of pseudoplots to topple the government with weird names such as Ergenekon, Sledgehammer, and Action Plan Against Reactionary Forces.
Turkish officers are resigning en masse to avoid arrest and sentencing for conspiracy against the government. Mass detentions of both serving and retired officers have been taking place in Turkey over the last decade. There are many trials against top brass accused of plotting against the ruling government.
Over at least the past half a century, the Turkish armed forces have been notorious for regular interference in domestic politics, organizing several coups to displace governments and generally having great influence on the political landscape. Turkish high brass has always been proud of staying guard of the secular nature of the Turkish state, the legacy of Kemal Ataturk.
In the eyes of the military AKP symbolizes the threat to Turkey's secularism, whereas Erdogan’s party eyes the armed forces as a dictator that has been telling the country what to do for too long. Twenty per cent of all Turkish 348 generals and admirals are currently locked behind bars.
In late January 2013 the exodus of Turkish officers from the army was given a new push. Famous Admiral Nusret Guner resigned over the detention of hundreds of his colleagues. His premature voluntary retirement sparked yet another wave of resignations. Guner says: In the past few years my comrades in arms, some of whom I know very closely and about whose patriotism I have never felt the slightest doubt, have been found guilty through verdicts handed down by courts in the name of the nation.
Two hundred Turkish Air Force officers followed the example of Guner’s resignation. These pilots say: well, no one really loves us, we’ve served the ten years minimum time, let’s just take our pensions and get a better job in a private sector.
The cases against the officers have been marked by forged documents, detentions without evidence, and an attempt to subordinate the military not to the institutions of the state but to Caliph Erdogan himself. Although many Turks do not support the military’s interference in the political system, they still see the legal proceedings against it as politically motivated. In that, they are correct: The downfall of the officers is the culmination of a highly undemocratic campaign to intimidate, harass, and imprison Erdogan’s opponents.
All suspect cases have been cooked up, with public opinion shaped by leaks to Fethullahci newspapers like Taraf and Zaman. Too much of the evidence is doubtful to believe the investigations are aimed at further democratization. Fethullahci prosecutors are hounding certain groups and individuals for political gain. The aggressive way in which these investigations are carried out shows the existence of a secret agenda or a hidden motive behind these operations against the army, intellectuals, academics, journalists. These cases have had a devastating impact on the morale of officers, and their focus if these cases are ever dropped will be trying to restore the morale of the officers rather than seeking to take revenge.
Pianist Fazil Say is an internationally acclaimed Turkish artist. He had to pay damages for insulting Muslim religious values on Twitter. Erdogan calls him a traitor to the nation. Many Turks quote Persian poet Omar Khayyam: You say that there are rivers of wine. Does that mean it is a heavenly bar? You say two virgins will be given to every believer. Does that mean it is a heavenly brothel? Say was one of the two hundred Twitter users to circulate the Khayyam quote, but he is the only one to face a trial for posing a risk to public order. Selective persecution is just a political tool.
Author and Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk had to pay damages after he openly criticized the genocide of Armenians. Elif Shafak alos paid damages for broaching the same topic in her book, The bastard of Istanbul. Nedim Guersel, author of the novel Allah's Daughters, had to pay damages for blasphemy.
Media that criticize Caliph Erdogan have found themselves in financial trouble due to punitive fines and tax investigations. After the leading newspaper Hurriyet connected Erdogan to a charity scandal, Erdogan fined the publication’s corporate owner, the Dogan Group, $523 million for tax evasion, and then fined it again seven months later for $2.5 billion in unpaid taxes and other unspecified irregularities, putting the total amount owed higher than the value of the company itself. The campaign served as a warning to other media not to criticize Erdogan, and, alongside arrests and firings of unfriendly journalists, it has created a climate of fear.
Caliph Erdogan has limited the ability of ordinary Turks to question his power. The anxiety produced by Erdogan’s actions against journalists, the military, and politicians has produced a high degree of self-censorship. Erdogan has empowered special security courts to arrest citizens on suspicion of terrorism without evidence or any right to a hearing and has used judicial indictments to target those calling for greater autonomy for the Kurds. Erdogan has virtually taken over the Turkish Academy of Sciences, once a bastion of Kemalist orthodoxy.
Caliph Erdogan has also established a nationwide internet filtering system which blocks out most messages and most blogs that are against him, Turkishness, Islam, AKP, Fethullahcis, Gulen, the Ergenekon persecution, the Sledgehammer persecution, the Armenian genocide, the Pontian genocide, the occupation of Northern Kurdistan, and the occupation of Northern Cyprus!
Caliph Erdogan cannot control his vanity. He now wants to leave his own legend on the cityscape of Istanbul with a supermosque. Erdogan's supermosque will be built on the highest hill on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, will have a capacity of 30,000 worshippers, and bear six minarets taller than the Prophet's Mosque in Medina.
Vanity is a long Turkish tradition. On the European side, Sultan Suleiman put his legend on the city with the Suleymaniye Mosque, which could be seen everywhere from old Istanbul. Now Erdogan wants to put his own legend on the Asian side. Ottoman sultans adorned the hills of historic Istanbul with mosques dedicated to their victories. By building the supermosque, Erdogan is telling the world he is the new caliph.
Erdogan has won the battle with the old secular elite that emerged with the founding of the modern republic in 1923. Erdogan has muzzled the military, upholder of secularism, that had ousted four governments since 1960. Reforms in the military and the judiciary were promoted as complying with change demanded for entry to the European Union. Economic growth, outstripping EU, is driven increasingly by trade with Middle East.
Erdogan is embracing Istanbul's imperial past, when the Ottoman Empire sprawled across three continents. Erdogan plans to dig a 45-km channel linking the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara to ease congestion in the Bosphorus Strait. He proposes a new constitution, replacing the version written after a 1980 military coup and in the process creating a powerful executive presidency. Barred from running for prime minister again, Erdogan is widely expected to bid for the new presidency in 2014, cementing his status as Turkey's most significant leader since Kemal Ataturk.
Füle hoodwinks:
We are bound to succeed together! Tesekkür ederiz!
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