EU-Turkey: A symbiotic relationship

Thank you for all your kind comments about my first blog. What made this an eventful week? The Galatasaray-Chelsea match for one thing. It was great to work with our consular team supporting visiting Chelsea fans, including bizarrely a contingent from Mongolia. And what an atmosphere inside the ground! Some of the Chelsea board of directors had never experienced anything like it. I wished I had learned to whistle like that when younger!
But, also, the visit of our Europe Minister, David Lidington was an important milestone for me personally as he was the first minister to visit Turkey since I took over as Ambassador. More importantly, it was a great opportunity for the UK to reaffirm our support for Turkish membership of the EU whilst having an open conversation between friends on how recent legislative changes in Turkey can best be reconciled with that vocation.

Of course, Mr Lidington’s discussions with Ministers Bozdağ and Çavuşoğlu are part of an ongoing process – we work together with Turkey on EU issues all the time in intensely practical ways. We lead on various EU-funded projects working to improve and align standards. I met one such UK project leader the other day who is working with the Turkish prison service. Fascinating.

Brits are intrigued by the notion of conjugal visits which don’t exist in UK prisons. Perhaps we need to learn from Turkey on that one! But we also work with Turkish ministries and NGOs on a wide range of human rights and other technical projects. This is the hard work done behind the headlines and we find our Turkish partners engaged and committed to the task of meeting EU standards. The Turkish EU Ministry does sterling work in keeping other Turkish ministries focused on this task.
People sometimes snigger when they hear the UK talk about the EU. We do have a bit of a reputation in Brussels as the awkward squad. But the fact is we’re strongly committed to the European ideal. Our Prime Minister has made it clear that we want the EU to be a continued success, but we think some changes are needed if we are to achieve that laudable ambition.. These changes – which can be summarised as greater flexibility, competitiveness and democratic accountability – would benefit the whole of Europe, not just the UK. And I happen to think that they closely track Turkish views of what a future EU should look like.

The EU still has a mission to maintain peace and stability and it is trying to play that role vis-a-vis Ukraine in the face of dangerous and provocative behavior by Russia. But it also needs to deliver prosperity for people across Europe. The Single Market’s been a huge success but there’s no room for complacency.

During Chancellor Merkel’s State Visit to London this week, she and our Prime Minister agreed that “Europe faces an existential economic challenge and needs to change if it is to succeed”. That’s why the UK thinks it’s important to complete the Single Market, remove obstacles to trade, free business from unnecessary “red tape” and build new trade relationships. Updating the Customs Union with Turkey would be a good start.
We also think flexibility’s important – we don’t agree that “one size fits all”. Individual Member States have different national approaches and want to cooperate in different policy areas. The EU needs to be able to accommodate this through “flexible geometry”. And that flexibility would make it easier to accommodate Turkey.
Increasingly, other Member States agree that Europe’s approach should be “Europe where necessary, national where possible” (to quote the Dutch subsidiarity review). That means a less bureaucratic Union and a stronger role for national parliaments and national governments in EU decision-making. It’s really important that citizens feel themselves represented; polls show that national parliaments and governments are seen to be closer to the interests of ordinary voters across Europe than the European Parliament and Commission. I think that it is a good thing that awkward old UK is forcing the EU to have this debate.

Finally, I hope Hurriyet readers will be able to join me online on Friday at 1pm. I’ll be on Twitter to take your questions on trade and investment in Turkey.