The eight Eastern and Central European countries that were under Communist rule until the events of 1989/91 brought an end to that era, and which have been members of the EU since May 1, 2004, belong, without exception, to the historical West. The division of Europe in 1945, represented by the name Yalta, was a division that ran counter to history. For this reason, none of the new EU member states has any fundamental problem with declaring a commitment to the political culture of the West.
This statement does not mean that European countries that were not historically part of the Occident cannot become members of the EU. Greece, with its Orthodox tradition, has been a member of the European Union since 1981. Its opening up to the political culture of the West began in the nineteenth century. Two other countries influenced by the Orthodox Church, Bulgaria and Romania, are supposed to join the EU in 2007. But the question remains whether the EU has interpreted the political criteria for accession (declared in 1993 in Copenhagen) too technocratically and positivistically and has neglected the question of political culture in its negotiations with candidates to date.
This also pertains to the most controversial candidate for EU membership: Turkey. This controversy would not exist if Turkey had opened up unreservedly to the political culture of the West. Then the geographic objection (i.e. that the country is predominantly located in Asia), would have been irrelevant. Turkey is actually partially Westernized, both from a geographical and a political perspective. On top of the economic and cultural East-West gap comes the fact that, while Turkey has indeed adopted numerous Western legal codes, it still has great difficulty accepting what we have called “the spirit of the law” since Montesquieu. The obstinate denial of the genocide committed against the Armenians cannot be reconciled with the political culture of the West. The European Commission and the European Council, that is, the governments of the member states, have systematically ignored this point to this day (in contrast to many national parliaments and the European Parliament). The treatment of the issue of the Armenian genocide will – must – be raised in the accession talks.
It is uncertain whether the drawn-out negotiation process will lead to Turkey’s admission in the end. Failure would be a debacle for all involved. For just this reason, sooner or later, someone should start thinking about constructive alternatives to full membership. “Privileged partnership” is the term I proposed for such an alternative on November 7, 2002, in an article for Die Zeit. Either way, should the talks or the ratification process fail, it must not lead to a rupture in European-Turkish relations.
“Project Europe” has a normative and historical foundation: that foundation consists of Western values and the political culture that emerged from them. Thus, the European Union cannot develop its identity in opposition to a country that has had as crucial an influence on the political culture of the West as the United States. There will always be occasion for disputes between Europe and the United States concerning interpretations of Western values – and certainly disputes about current government policies on both sides of the Atlantic. But a glance at non-Western societies is enough to realize that the commonalities between America and Europe far outweigh their differences.
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