Does Turkey Still Want to Join the EU?
The Inquiry
BBC
4.6 • 1.7K Ratings
🗓️ 13 December 2016
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Turkey first applied to join the European club over 50 years ago. Over the subsequent decades-long flirtation, enthusiasm for the EU in Turkey has remained high. Integrating with Europe, it was thought, would spur modernisation and economic development. But the country is changing under President Erdogan – who recently survived a coup attempt – in ways which deepen doubts in Europe about whether Turkey really shares its values. And enthusiasm in Turkey for the EU has begun to ebb away, as fewer and fewer Turks believe the EU will ever fully embrace them. So, our question this week: does Turkey still want to join the EU? Contributors: Aykan Erdemir, former Turkish politician; Amberin Zaman, journalist and fellow at the Wilson Center; Senem Aydın-Düzgit, professor in international relations at Sabancı University; and Sinan Ulgen, scholar in Turkish foreign relations at Carnegie Europe.
Presenter: Chris Morris Producer: Julia Ross
(Photo: European Commission President Jean Claude Juncker welcomes Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at the EU Commission in Brussels, Belgium, 05 October 2015. BBC Copyright, Elvis)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | November 1918 the |
| 0:05.0 | the ships of the victors crowd the harbor at Constantinople after World War I |
| 0:10.0 | from the palace of a weak and corrupt sultan there comes no opposition. |
| 0:14.9 | Turks now into Mecca accept their fate. |
| 0:18.4 | The end of the First World War and the fall of the once mighty Ottoman Empire. |
| 0:23.0 | A much smaller and more homogeneous land which with leadership may become a nation. |
| 0:30.0 | It's nearly 100 years since those tumultuous events. That smaller, more homogenous land did become a nation, Turkey. But what kind of nation is it? Where does it belong? |
| 0:47.0 | This is the inquiry and I'm Chris Morris. I used to live in Turkey a wonderful complex fascinating place. |
| 0:55.0 | Back then more than a decade ago it seemed clear that Turks saw their future as Europeans. |
| 1:01.0 | Their application to join the European Union was slowly progressing and there was |
| 1:05.5 | real enthusiasm for the EU. Now well now it seems something's changed that's why |
| 1:12.2 | this week we're asking, does Turkey still |
| 1:14.8 | want to join the EU? Part one, a long engagement. For Turkey, historically the idea of a union in Europe was kind of part of the founding |
| 1:40.2 | logic of the secular republic. Aikand Eredemir is our first expert witness, a former member of the Turkish Parliament, |
| 1:49.0 | and he can help us understand how we got to this point in relations between Turkey and Europe. |
| 1:55.0 | Going back to the late 1940s, Turkish delegations saw themselves as architects, as visionaries of the Europe of the future. |
| 2:07.0 | Their inspiration was Mustafa Kamal Ataturk, the founder of the Modern Republic, |
| 2:16.7 | described in this CBS film as the incredible Turk. |
| 2:20.3 | His fantastic dream is not of empire or conquest, but of creating a democratic Turkey, a new kind of Turk in his lifetime. |
| 2:30.0 | In the 1920s he launched an extraordinary transformation, taking his impoverished new country by the |
| 2:36.1 | scruff of the neck and forcing it to change. Being modern meant being Western, looking towards Europe. The Latin alphabet was adopted, Western dress was |
| 2:46.2 | introduced, and wearing the Fez was banned. |
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