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29th April 2005
Article for The Japan Times
By David Howell
Re-Inventing Eurasia
ISTANBUL- Where does Europe end and Asia begin?
The question is of more than academic interest because it determines what sort
of entity the European Union is to be. There are those who talk about ‘the final
completion’ of the Union, as though a line can be carefully drawn between the
states of Europe and their eastern neighbours and that this would settle for all
time the question of who should be members and who should be left out.
But anyone standing here in the great and ancient city of Istanbul is at once in
both Europe and in Asia. This is the European tip of the vast and mainly Muslim
nation of Turkey which stretches deep into the Central Asian heartlands.
The decision has been made by the existing EU members, after much
soul-searching, to begin the processes which bring Turkey into the European
Union. That step, when and if it takes place (which could be up to twelve years
ahead), will end the concept of the European Union as a containable grouping on
the Western end of the Eurasian landmass.
Admitting Turkey raises questions about all the other states immediately
neighbouring the present EU on its eastern borders. The new Ukraine, fresh from
its democratic revolution, is eager to apply. Belarus may not be far behind.
Beyond them lie the ‘stans’ of Central Asia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and others,
who consider themselves as possible candidates. Even the massive Russian
Federation has toyed with the idea of applying, arguing that if Turkey, half
European and half Asian, can sign up , then Russia is in the same position,
although on a vastly greater scale.
A few days ago the European Union opened negotiations for membership with
Romania and Bulgaria. Croatia is also at the door, although held back by a
dispute over the handing over of war criminals, and Serbia and war-torn Bosnia
will not be far behind.
These negotiations with the Balkan states at least involve nations who by both
history and geography are clear parts of the European region. Their admission
will be complex but it will be simplicity itself compared with the task of
bringing in Turkey and the fundamental questions such a move raises.
In effect the Turkish decision puts paid to the founding fathers’ dream of
Europe. This dream, most clearly formulated by Jean Monnet and still much
favoured by many European idealists and especially by the French and German
Europe-builders, was that the Union would form a tight-knit Western bloc, bound
together on novel principles but sufficiently unified to constitute a real force
in the world, with a clear place on the global stage and a definite role as a
counterweight to American global dominance.
But a Union which includes Turkey, and states beyond Turkey, cannot possibly
operate as a unified force or have a single voice on the world stage. It can be
a vast and expanding area of trade liberalisation and it can aspire to common
values about human rights and democracy. But it cannot really call itself
‘European ’ any more and it cannot pose as a global power, with its own seat at
the high tables of world affairs, such as the United Nations and the G8 Summit
gatherings, its own army and its own central government.
So embracing Turkey changes everything. The Union, which has come so far in the
last fifty years in European garb, is going to need a new label to describe
itself.
History provides us with the right one, which is ‘Eurasia’. This was the ancient
concept which welded Europe and Asia together, first under the Mongol Emperors
in the thirteenth century, and then, increasingly, via the huge trade routes
between China which awakened European awareness to eastern civilisations and
prompted the European voyages of discovery to the east – the Chinese mandarins
having fatally opted out of the opening up process by scrapping the Ming dynasty
fleet of ocean-going ships.
Eurasia is now the best and most accurate description of what lies ahead if the
Turkish membership of the EU goes forward and others follow – an interweaving of
Europe and much of Asia into a vast liberal and open trading alliance.
It is a prospect which will be strongly resisted by many Western Europeans who
see their ‘core Europe’ already diluted by admitting nine more central European
countries, plus Cyprus, and set to be diluted far further by Turkey.
These tensions are already evident in the current debates ,and forthcoming
referendum votes, about the proposed new Euro-Constitution - which has been
presented by its progenitors as a necessary device for adapting the Union to
present and future enlargement . Its rejection by France would signify deep
hostility to the whole enlargement process. And it would send a bitter message
to the Turks and others further east that they were not really wanted after all
and that the West Europeans preferred to keep themselves to themselves as an
integrated (and theoretically Christian), would-be superstate.
So the battle lines are now being increasingly sharply drawn between ‘Europe’
and ‘Eurasia’ as the future grouping which will shape this part of the planet.
Istanbul stands symbolically at the heart of this debate - between the vision of
a tightly and geographically unified ‘European’ Europe and a much wider and
inevitably far looser kind of Eurasian Union going deep into Asia.
In the end the wider vision will prevail because communications and information
technology now outdate old geographical ties. But the old guard, who want to
preserve their Western fortress of Christianity and culture will put up a
desperate fight and they are by no means beaten yet.
Ends
howelld@parliament.uk
www.lordhowell.com
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