Minister, Ambassadors, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

I would like to express my pleasure and honour to address such a distinguished gathering. I also would like to thank everyone who participated in the organization of this conference. I did attend one of the Wilton Park Conferences in the Wilton House about two years ago. But now being in Istanbul at this conference is very timely. Why?

 

Because we are going to talk about Turkey, EU and Turkey’s accession process to the EU. The EU itself has been going through difficult times. And now, we have the Lisbon Treaty which is being ratified by the member states one by one and which is bringing very important institutional reforms to make the EU more effective and more efficient. 

 

This is a time during which we are having a lot of discussions about inter-cultural dialogue, which has its own place in the EU-Turkey relations as well. We have many regional issues in the close neighborhood of the EU. And Turkey has a lot to do with all of these regions, the Balkans, the Caucasus, the Central Asia and the Middle East. Turkey is quite involved because of the special cultural and historical ties with these regions. Our foreign policy covers a wide area and this has a lot to do with Turkey’s accession to the EU.

 

In terms of the Turkey-EU relations, we are also going through interesting times. On one hand, Turkey started negotiations for full membership at the end of 2004.  But later on, we faced difficulties which are mostly political. This is also an issue to be discussed in depth during this conference.

 

There is another reason for this conference to be timely. It’s the current agenda in Turkey and how it fits in the EU accession process.

 

I will not be able to follow the whole conference but I will get information about every detail in the discussions.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

Today is the 152th anniversary of an event which registered the Ottoman Empire as a European state. This was the Paris Treaty after the Crimean War during which Italy, France and England fought against the Russians. In 1856, the Paris Treaty registered Turkey as a European state. It is also interesting to note that the Treaty was signed in Paris.

Of course, the accession process of Turkey has many aspects. But I just want to very briefly discuss what we have been doing. Turkey has been going through an enormous transformation process during the last 4-5 years. It has been a political, economic and social transformation. Compared to the country of 5 years ago, Turkey is a very different place.

 

We have been doing reforms on the political side, enhancing our democratic system and improving our laws in terms of fundamental rights.

 

We have been doing economic reforms in the public sector and financial sector in order to achieve better performance and in order to make Turkey a much more open economy.

 

After the beginning of the negotiation process, we have adopted most of the “acquis communitaire”. We are still working on the chapters to be opened. Despite the difficulties of a political nature, we are moving ahead on the adoption of the acquis.

 

All reforms that we have been doing are done with strong sense of ownership. We make these reforms because we believe in them, not because we are urged. We make those reforms because we believe that they are good for Turkey.

 

Turkey’s accession process has been an important anchor for our own reform process. Without a strong ownership, these reforms would not have been achieved.

 

When we talk about ownership, public support is the key. The public support for what we have done has been very strong in Turkey. But there has been some decline in the public support for EU accession. According to the polls in 2004, the public support for the EU accession was 75%. Now it is around 52%. Why has this decline taken place although the Turkish people are happy with the reforms?

 

It is mostly because of the rhetoric of some member states. Right after the beginning of the negotiation process, elections were held in Germany, a process during which Turkish people almost every day heard “why Turkey does not belong to Europe”. In the French election process, we faced a similar situation. Every single word about Turkey was consumed for domestic worries. Turkish people got the feeling of “being not wanted”.

 

The decline in public support is mostly an emotional response to all these. On the one hand, commitments were made and all member states reached consensus for the beginning of negotiations targeting full membership to the EU. But for some member states, Turkey’s full membership is not wanted because Turkey is too different, too big or whatever their excuse is.

 

So, we have to put distance between what is good for Turkey and the formal process. The domestic public support is strong enough for the government to continue this reform process with a strong political will.

 

What is good about the EU process is that it requires benchmarks, criteria, standards and norms that we can always compare ourselves with and measure our level. If we did not have any criteria or benchmarks, it would be easy to declare that reforms are made and that would be it. For example, in terms of our reforms about democratization, it is very easy for people to say that Turkey is a democratic country, we are finished and that’s all. But the EU process and the criteria compose a very important framework.

 

The EU process leads us on a path on which Turkey is always going to target a first class democracy, a democracy which is 100% in line with the Copenhagen criteria. So, that’s why there is big value in this process. That is why my Government targets EU membership to update our system of law to make the lives of our people more and more prosperous.

 

One important result of what we have been doing is that there has been a big shift of power in Turkey. Now our citizens are more empowered than they used to be.  And they feel it, they use it. So the power is no longer a privilege of a few but there is common access. People have the power to determine their future, to express themselves. Now we are a much more open country, a much more open democracy and economy. That is helping us already and will continue to help us. Opening the country has been an irreversible process which has a lot of results. We have now more than 400 television channels including national, local and regional ones. We have 1100 radio channels and internet access for almost all schools in Turkey. 7 or 8 year old kids can communicate with the whole world from their computer labs. In the last 2 years, we have distributed 5 hundred thousand PCs to the schools.

 

It is the wisdom and the common sense to prevail our country from going in the wrong direction. Last year our democracy passed through some important democracy tests. Our democracy passed those tests and emerged stronger. It seems that we are seriously going to pass through another test. But I have good reasons to strongly believe that our democracy will win again.

 

What needs to be done in Turkey is to continue the reforms with a strong political will. We have done a lot but a lot remains to be done. All the problems that we face now are because of the fact that there are unreformed areas. We have done a lot on democratization but it is very obvious that we still have a lot to do.

 

We started to work on an extensive Constitutional reform, in order to bring our Constitution in line with European criteria and in line with the Venice Commission findings. Technical work has already been done. There are speakers in this conference who will give more details about the work. If we do this constitutional reform, this will be the first Constitution that is made in normal times in Turkey.

 

Ladies and Gentlemen,

 

About the ongoing accession process, I would like to give a quick snapshot vis-a-vis the chapters. Things are on track but the pace sometimes slows down. Unfortunately we have found out that the opening and closing of the chapters in our case are not being determined by technical factors. For example, we have now 8 chapters blocked because of the Cyprus issue. Another 5 chapters are not starting because of the position of one member state. We have other several chapters that the Commission has reported that Turkey is ready to open. But we are not able to open those chapters because of some other individual member states’ political considerations. We’ve seen and understood that in Turkish case opening and closing of chapters are not determined by technical factors but also by political considerations. Then we’ve decided to put a distance between our actual reform process and the formal opening process of the chapters. Our efforts in all the chapters are to upgrade our system.

 

Last year in April, we announced a program for adopting the EU acquis. This program covers all the chapters. We have a calendar until the year 2013. It is not a date given to us. We have determined this because we’ve thought that it is a reasonable time to be in line with the acquis communutaire. We made it public last year in April. And now we are proceeding with that program. Regardless of chapters to be opened, in every chapter we are moving forwards. Maybe we have made more progress in some chapters but there is not even one chapter in which things are standing still.

 

Opening a chapter, which we have done 6 times already, is a short affair. It takes around 15-20 minutes. In the ceremony member states say approve the text. But we know better than to wait around for mere ceremonies. For all the chapters we have the ability to judge our performance in collaboration with the Commission. Every year, the progress report of the Commission covers all the chapters in which there is progress and in which there is not. We continuously upgrade our harmonization with the acquis and update the Commission about what we are doing. Things are going well on that level.

 

This will continue like this until the climate in the EU is more receptive for more enlargements or simply for Turkey itself. Maybe before the start of the negotiations, the big question was “when will Turkey be ready for the EU?” But from now on, the big question will be “When will the EU be ready for Turkey?”

 

Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Guests,

 

We have so many international issues, global issues which need more solidarity and more cooperation whether it is global terrorism, migration, environment, global warming, loss of bio-diversity, de-forestation and pollution. In all of those areas we need cooperation. In all these fields, Turkish-EU cooperation needs to be enhanced.

 

I also want to say a couple of words about the Turkish economy. At the end of this process, the Turkish economy is going to be one of the most important areas which will provide a source of judgment regarding whether Turkey is ready to join the EU or not. The total GDP of Turkey has reached 658 billion Dollars and per capita GDP is 9.3 thousand Dollars. The total GDP would have been the sixth largest economy in the EU if Turkey was a member. So let’s say after Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain, Turkey is now the 6th largest economy by total GDP and the 17th largest worldwide. When we make some projections into the future, in 10 to 15 years the rank of the Turkey will be going up. It is quiet an ambitious but a realistic target that Turkey could be in the top ten economies of the world by year 2023 which will be the hundredth anniversary of the Turkish Republic.

 

All the economic indicators have been moving in a positive direction during the last past 5 years. For example, as an indicator to measure openness, our exports were only 36 billion Dollars in 2002. Last year it was 107 billion Dollars. FDI traditionally was around 1 billion Dollars a year and then in 2005 it started to pick up. It was 10 billion or so in 2005, then the following year it reached 22 billion Dollars. These figures make Turkey the 6th largest trade partner of the European Union. So when you take these figures as a whole and look at the figures of how much trade the EU is making with the rest of the world, you would notice that after other countries like the US, China and Japan and so forth, Turkey would be the sixth.

 

Also, we are moving on with the Maastricht criteria on the budget deficit and public debt stock. Actually, in 2005, when we did meet the budget criteria, our budget deficit was 14% of GNP and last year it was 2%. This is a figure which is better than some countries which are in the eurozone. Our public debt stock is less than 15 %. The average of the euro zone was 16%. So in terms of the total public debt stock; we are below the average of the eurozone already. So we strongly believe that by the time when Turkey becomes ready for accession, the economy is not going to be a problem. Turkey is going to be more and more perceived as an asset rather than a burden. We believe that we are going to bring very valuable assets to the competitiveness of the EU.

 

Energy is another area where Turkey will be contributing. Actually we are already contributing, with the pipelines that are presently operational. We have more oil pipeline and gas pipeline projects. The North-South, East-West energy corridors are some of them. Some are completed, some of them are under construction and some of them are projected. Turkey is going to be a very important route for supplying alternative energy sources to the European Union. For gas for example, after Russia, Norway and North Africa, Turkey is going to be the fourth main path towards the European Union. Nabucco is one of the most important projects.

 

Another important aspect of Turkish reforms is its influence in quite a large geography. What we are doing in Turkey is influencing many countries in North Africa, Middle East, Central Asia, and Caucasus. Many reform oriented young intellectuals in those countries are feeling themselves stronger when they see the progress in Turkey. In a way, we are demonstrating more and more as a democratic country. Our success is an enormous source of inspiration for many countries.

 

Turkey is a member of the OIC – Organization of Islamic Conference. After 36 years, just 2 weeks ago the OIC came up with a new charter. Turkey has been very active and involved with this new charter. That charter now has been approved by all 57 members. It has concepts like transparency, rule of law, fundamental rights, and women’s rights. At the Summit that we had in Dakar, many Heads of States and many Foreign Ministers met with us. They had a keen interest in what we are doing. Ministers from countries as far as Indonesia or Morocco or many Middle Eastern countries are asking many detailed questions about our reform progress.

 

Ultimately what we are doing is providing a more secure and a more stable neighborhood for the European Union. It is very important for the long-term strategic interest of the Union. What we are doing is considered to be a lot in terms of intercultural dialogue. The Alliance of Civilization Initiative that has been started together with Spain is now in the domain of the UN and the UN High Representative, former President of Portugal Sampiao is now the High Representative for the Initiative. We formed a group, a group of friends. The countries which wanted to list themselves in this group were able to do so and right now we have more than 60 countries and 12 international organizations in the Friends of the Alliance. We asked all the countries to come up with concrete projects about interfaith dialogue, about the relations between the West and Islam, about the problems that we are observing in many parts of the world. We have already prepared our national plan. I know that there are right now quite a few countries preparing their own national programs.

 

Turkey is also contributing in terms of reconstruction in the crises and reconciliation efforts in regional conflicts. Turkey has military existence in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Congo and Haiti.

 

We are also working on reconstruction and humanitarian aid. We are building schools in Lebanon and in Afghanistan. We are providing health-care services for people in Sudan. And there is a long list which I will not be able to go through right now. Turkey is cooperating closely with the UN and with the EU in many parts of the world. Turkey is a member of NATO. So, in connection with these points, Turkey will add more and more value to the EU.

 

The EU is probably the most important peace project of the 20th century after the Second World War. It started out with 6 members cooperating in steel and coal and has enlarged to 27 members. And now Turkish membership is going to be a very big event, probably one of the most important events of the 21th century. Turkey’s membership will be a new peace project in a way.

 

The citizens of Europe should be better informed about the actual impact of enlargement and also about the prospective impacts of Turkey’s accession. Each enlargement has eventually reinvigorated the economies of Europe. Each joining country has added new markets and new opportunities for investment to the EU.

 

Turkish accession is a win-win process. Regardless of what happens at the end, the process itself is valuable. With Turkey ultimately in the EU, the Union is going to be a more representative voice. The values of the EU will prove to be universal. We are committed to carrying on with this process as long as it is kept on a realistic and viable base. We should focus our efforts on maintaining the sustainability of the accession negotiations.

 

Thank you.