The Cost of Turkey

The polemists base their argument on figures obtained from studies analysing the cost of a fictional membership of Turkey with the variables defined by the researchers themselves. This new development is a consequence of the success of the Turkish government, but also the failure of Turkish academic circles.

The German daily "Die Welt" estimated in Nov. 2002 that the cost would lie somewhere between 20 and 38 billion euros. This figure was used continuously by the "No-to-Turkey" camp for a long time, that is, until a new figure was offered by an institute in Munich in Jan. 2004. The East Europe Institute calculated the annual cost to be around 14 billion euros. It is this figure that Edmund Stoiber, one of the main leaders of the German conservatives, frequently mentions in his speeches.

This new trend, or let us say this war with figures, is significant in two aspects; first of all, it is easy to terrify the public with figures – especially in times of economic recession. The bigger the figures are, the more reaction you get. And as there are few genuine studies on the impact of an eventual Turkish accession to the EU, the information vacuum is easily filled by politicians choosing whatever figures suits best their needs without quantifying how their sums were calculated. Unfortunately, Turkish universities are persistently dormant in feeding even the Turkish public with information.

The second aspect is good news for Turkey, however. Political arguments opposing Turkish aspirations do not work anymore. Ankara did its homework; as a result of successful reforms and changes in policy, the previous arguments based upon Turkey’s shortcomings on human rights issues — together with the Cyprus issue — have since lost their credibility. The "No-to-Turkey" front had to find new arguments, so thus did the economic ones came to the forefront.

The Centre for Studies of Turkey (CST) has just completed a study analysing the cost of an eventual Turkish membership. According to this study, Turkey would receive in the May 2004 to December 2006 period a net sum of 24.5 billion euros. The annual cost of Turkey is around 9.2 billion euros, 22 percent of which would be covered by Germany – the biggest net contributor of the budget. Indeed, this amount is still a challenge for the EU budget, but is also far lower than the figures pronounced by conservative circles in Germany. Of course the scenario of the CST study has its shortcomings, for instance, trade with Third World countries is taken as a fixed variable, the affect of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreements have not been taken into account and the change in the agricultural production in Turkey and in the EU has been ignored. But still the outcome of the study gives an idea, indeed an objective idea, on what the range of the eventual cost could be; and it enriches Turkey’s EU relations.

However, it is not this trend, but the persistent dormancy of the Turkish research institutes working in this area is worrying. These very Turkish institutes know little on the decision-making system within the EU. The EU budget is still a "strange subject" dealing only in superficial debate, instead of academic research informing the public.

Turkey seems to have won the battle against political symbols: The Kurdish politician Leyla Zana is free after 10-years-imprisonment and education and broadcasting in Kurdish has begun. Now it is time for the Turkish universities to focus more on the EU and the battle with figures. Turkish institutes must further cooperate with other significant European institutes and to begin feeding the European public with information on the state of the Turkish industry and agriculture in order to enrich the agenda of future debates.

This is important for the sake of stability, welfare and peace in Europe.