Il volume è pubblicato dall'European Council on Foreign Relation (ECFR) ed è stato realizzato in collaborazione con il Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM) di Istanbul, il Centre for Liberal Strategies (CLS) di Sofia la Mercator Stiftung che ha fornito il supporto finanziario. I saggi sono stati raccolti nel corso di due missioni di studio a Istanbul, Ankara e Gaziantep condotte nel mese di novembre 2010 e nel febbraio-marzo 2011.
Tre sono le questioni principali che sono state poste agli autori dei testi:
1. La nuova Turchia con la sua diversità interna, è in grado di riconciliare tensioni storiche e guarire ferite profonde?
2. La Turchia si sta muovendo verso il consolidamento di conquiste democratiche o è minacciata da una tirannia populista della maggioranza o addirittura da un regime autoritario?
3. Perché la Turchia sta agendo in maniera indipendente dall'Occidente? E' un partner o una rivale per l'UE e gli Stati Uniti, in particolare nei Paesi vicini?
Molti turchi si sentono alienati dalla crescente riluttanza dell'Unione Europea ad ammettere la Turchia come Paese membro e di conseguenza l'UE è assente da molti dibattiti interni anche se in diverse questioni potrebbe avere un ruolo importante: la questione dell'identità e delle differenze interne, con particolare attenzione alla questione curda; il processo di democratizzazione e di riforma costituzionale; lo sviluppo economico e i massici legami con Europa; l'attrazione che la Turchia può esercitare sui suoi vicini del Medio Oriente grazie ai suoi stretti legami economici e politici con l'Europa. Il volume fornisce una serie di prospettive e di opinioni dirette che danno conto del ivace dibattito politico in corso in Turchia
La pubblicazione, in formato Pdf e in inglese, è scaricabile direttamente dal sito dell' European Council on Foreign Relation.
L'ECFR ha chiesto a diverse personalità europee un commento sui contenuti del volume, sulle analisi e le opinioni proposte. Qui di seguito vi riporto (in inglese) quello di Emma Bonino (ringrazio Filippo Di Robilant per la segnalazione).
What does Turkey think?
Giovedì 16 giugno, 2011
On the report: it is a collection of recent essays from leading Turkish intellectuals, political figures, journalists and diplomats that bring together a range of perspectives on Turkey's dilemmas, priorities and aspirations. The aim of the report is to offer a reference point for an international audience looking at better understanding the backdrop of Turkey's recent transformations. The report's starting point is that Turkey is no longer the country the West once knew and, in order to unravel the puzzle that Turkey is today, it is necessary to delve deeper into the ways the country sees itself and the world (in questo senso è nel solco del lavoro fatto dai due rapporti dell'Independent Commission). The report singles out three key areas of public discussion. The first is a rather familiar one: can the new Turkey deal with its internal diversity, reconcile historical tensions and heel deep wounds? (in altre parole, mettere assieme i conservatori dell'AKP, i secolaristi, i Curdi, gli alevi, le comunità non musulmane, gli intellettuali liberali, ecc...?). The answer is overall hopeful, though rethinking fundamental issues such as nationhood, citizenship and relations between state and religion is still a work in progress and the solutions are not obvious. The second key area is a fairly new one. It is a reflection of the fact that, while Turkey has replaced the tutelage of the military-bureaucratic apparatus with a more advanced democratic regime, the AKP has been in a leading position for a decade (meno di Berlusconi da noi, sic!). Is Turkey moving in the direction of consolidating democratic achievements or is it threatened by populist majoritarianism, or even authoritarian rule with a socially conservative tinge? Some fear "putinisation" at the horizon (i recenti risultati elettorali dovrebbero contenere questo processo). The third key area explores the reordering of Turkey's foreign relations. Why is Turkey acting independently from the West? Is it a partner or a rival of the US and the EU? All the authors seem to agree that change in foreign policy has to do with the redistribution of global political, economic and ideological power. So the issue of how to bring Europe back surfaces again. The EU may be increasingly absent from Turkey's public debates - and, in parallel, the Turkish public is losing faith that Turkey will ever make it in the EU - but the EU has not lost its significance altogether. For instance, it plays an important role in each of the three areas of debate explored by the report. Nobody in Turkey would challenge the fact that a revitalised membership perspective would affect positively the pace and the quality of the democratisation process; nor that the country's competitiveness in the global economy depends largely on access to the EU's massive internal market. In other words, if it's true that it's too early to write the EU off, it's equally true that in the current situation the EU is not indispensable and a prolonged status quo scenario is possible. The reason for this is that, above all, Turkey is self-confindent and optimistic (because of its economic growth, its demographic profile and its foreign policy assertiveness), which makes it non-Western at a moment when the West is pessimistic. This makes Turkey generally unaware of its structural vulnerability and pushes it to underestimate others (in particular: if it doesn't carry on with reforms it will end up caught between Europe's high-tech economies and Asia's low-wage economies; that foreign policy successes may be seriously put under stress as stakes increase and room for manoeuvre narrow; and growing polarisation of society may lead to authoritarianism). So, for the moment, the EU does not appear to be Turkey's major strategic objective, but rather its insurance policy. The status quo looks stable. While the opinion polls still register considerable levels of support for Turkish accession, support for the EU is heavily mediated by party affiliation: if AKP decided to change its position on the EU, the current figures could change dramatically. For this reason, the report concludes that, to make interdependence work, the EU needs to readily engage the new Turkey.
Comments: the report is an excellent reference point but it is obviously politically overshadowed by the election results of last Sunday. For Erdogan they were an extraordinary achievement given that he has won three absolute majorities in a row, which makes him a towering figure at home and a confident statesman abroad. AKP won about 50% of the vote on Sunday, up from 47% in 2007 although it translated in less seats, from 331 to 326. He now faces a greater number of adversaries in Parliament, in particular the Republican People's Party (135 seats, eredi di Ataturk) whose new leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu, has revamped what was a shrine-worshipper into a viable social democratic party, and the Kurdish movement (36 seats) that has now become part of mainstream politics. Turkish voters have clearly denied Erdogan a supermajority that would have enabled him to fashion a new Constitution moving Turkey from a parliamentary to a presidential system along French lines. AKP has amended in the past the current Constitution so that future presidents will no longer be elected by Parliament but by universal suffrage. In Turkey's already highly centralized system and already-polarized political environment, a "one-party" Constitution and a move towards a presidential system does not look like a good idea: it could lead to rivalry or paralysis between a strengthened president and a traditionally powerful Prime Minister, both backed by popular mandate; or it could further erode checks and balances and thus reinforce autocratic tendencies. Erdogan acknowledged, in his victory speech, that the new arithmetic of Parliament needs dialogue with the Opposition and cross-party consensus for constitutional changes. His words are welcomed but this cooperation will be up-hill, not least because of his increasingly imperious attitude and intolerance to criticism.
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