Turkey's islamic party sees advantage in EU bid.

• Author: Larrabee, F. Stephen
• Position: European Integration - European Union, Justice and Development Party

The question of Turkish membership is one of the most difficult and important challenges facing the European Union. How this challenge is managed will have a significant impact on Turkey's political evolution and on the EU's own strength and vitality. Turkish membership in the EU would anchor Turkey firmly to the West and provide an important bridge to the Muslim world in the Middle East. Turkey also has the potential to become an important regional hub for the transport of Caspian gas and oil, which would allow Europe to reduce its dependence on Russian energy supplies.

However, Turkish membership poses major challenges to the EU's absorptive capacity and political cohesion. With a population of close to 70 million people, Turkey is the second largest country in Europe. If its population continues to grow at the current rate, it will have the largest population in Europe by the middle of the 21st century. Integrating a country of this size--especially one characterized by great regional disparities and a per capita income well below the EU average--will require major adjustments in EU institutions and policies.

In Turkey's case, cultural factors also affect the membership question. There is an ambiguous legacy between Turkey and Europe. In Turkish eyes, the question of EU membership entails cultural choices. And among many Europeans there has always been--and continues to be--a sense that Turkey is not really "European."

For centuries, "the Turk" was the significant "other" against which Europe defined its identity. This perception of Turks as "other" is deeply embedded in Europeans' collective consciousness and continues to color European views of Turkey today. Because of its Muslim culture and religion Turkey is regarded by many EU members as not quite "European."

This ambiguity about Turkey's place in Europe--its "Europeanness"--has become more acute since the collapse of communism. During the cold war, strategic considerations tended to dominate Turkey's relationship to Europe, other reasons were subordinated to the overriding need to bind Turkey close to the West. Turkey provided a critical barrier to the expansion of Soviet military power into the Mediterranean and it tied down some 24 Soviet divisions that would otherwise have been deployed in Central Europe.

With the disappearance of the Soviet threat, the importance of military-strategic factors has declined and cultural and social dimensions have become more important in affecting Turkey's quest for EU membership. At the same time, with the addition of 12 new EU members, questions about Europe's borders and "identity"--Where does Europe end?--have begun to play a more prominent role in the debate.

For Turkey, EU membership has always been about more than economics. In Turkish eyes, it represents a historical and "civilizational" choice--the culmination of the process of Westernization that began in the late 19th century under the Ottomans and was given irreversible impetus with the founding of the Turkish Republic by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in 1923. Turkey rejects the idea of a "privileged partnership" advocated by some EU members because it implies less than full acceptance of Turkey's Western identity.

Ironically, the strongest advocate of EU membership in Turkey today is the Justice and Development Party (AKP), which has Islamic roots. The AKP has made EU membership one of the main pillars of...