Artículo de Fareed Zakaria en "Newsweek" del 25-11-02.

The EU can transform Turkey, create a more energetic Europe and alter the balance between moderates and radicals in the Islamic world

Europeans often complain that America’s strategy in the war on terror is one-dimensional. It’s all military might with little effort to engage the Islamic world in a constructive way. They point out that unless we help Muslim countries prosper, all the F-16s and Predators in the world won’t stop the flow of terror. It’s a valid criticism, but the single biggest push that could shift events in this direction lies not in America’s hands but Europe’s. And it is about to blow it.

In december, the European Union is likely once again to dissemble, delay and deceive Turkey about its prospects for membership. Ever since December 1999, when the EU announced that Turkey was a candidate to join, becoming part of Europe has been Turkey’s national obsession. Despite the worst economic recession in a generation, despite divided and weak governments, despite a recent battle with its Kurdish minority, Turkey has undergone large-scale economic liberalization and passed three sets of path-breaking constitutional reforms along lines suggested by the European Commission. The last set, approved in August 2002, abolished the death penalty, gave linguistic and educational rights to the Kurdish minority and expanded the rule of law and political and press freedoms. "All the things that Turkey has been unwilling to do for decades it enacted in one day last August," says Soli Ozel, a Turkish political scientist.

And what has been Europe’s reaction to these historic measures? It found fault with all of them. The European Commission put out a dismissive report pointing out that there are yet more reforms to be done—which the Turks have always admitted and to which the new government has committed itself. Key national governments—chiefly Germany and France—have waged a whisper campaign against Turkey on constantly shifting grounds. For instance, until last month Europeans warned that if the Turkish military intervened to ban the Justice and Development Party—for fear of its Islamist past—this would prove the country was not really democratic. Now that the military has endorsed the party’s victory in elections two weeks ago, Europeans say, "we can’t take into Europe a government run by Islamists."

Valery Giscard d’Estaing, the insufferably arrogant former French president entrusted with envisioning the future of Europe, did not bother to whisper. He announced in an interview with Le Monde that those advocating Turkish membership are "enemies of Europe" and that Turkish admission would mean "the end of Europe." But who are these enemies? It was Charles de Gaulle who supported Turkey’s claim to be part of the European Community in the 1960s. It was Europe that invited Turkey to apply for membership in the 1970s, an invitation that Turkey foolishly declined at the time. And it was Brussels that declared Turkey a member candidate in 1999.

Europe’s concerns about Turkey are real. The latter is big and poor. But Portugal was also poor when it joined the European Community; in fact, its per capita GDP then was about that of Turkey’s now. Besides, no one is talking about Turkey becoming a member today. It took eight years to negotiate Spain’s entry into Europe. It could take longer for Turkey, but the process would set the country irrevocably on the path to prosperity and mature democracy. Turkey’s size makes countries like France and Germany worry about losing influence in a bigger Europe. But that process is already underway. In 2004, 10 countries totaling more than 74 million people will become part of the EU. And if Turkey has been an imperfect democracy, until a few years before they joined Europe, Spain, Portugal and Greece were dictatorships.

The big unstated objection—well, now stated after Giscard’s outburst—is that Turkey is Muslim. But while this view of Europe as ethnically and religiously coherent has a comforting feeling to it—as nostalgia always does—it doesn’t really describe Europe today. What about Bosnia, Kosovo and Albania, three Muslim societies within Europe? What about the millions of Muslims in Europe, who make up the region’s second largest religion? Europe is increasingly a continent of diverse peoples, races and religions, united by ideas and ideals. There is no going back to Christendom.
European statesmen often rue the fact that they do not have the power or unity to act boldly on the world stage the way America does. But the prospect of European Union membership is Europe’s strategic weapon—one that is wielded collectively. In offering it to struggling societies, the EU has revolutionized them. Now it can transform Turkey, create a larger, more energetic Europe and dramatically alter the balance between moderates and radicals in the Islamic world. Europe has the power. It needs only the vision and the will.