EU urged to alter approach to Turkey or jeopardise links

By Leyla Boulton in London

The European Union needs to overhaul its approach to Turkey or face the collapse of a strategically important relationship with unpredictable consequences, the country's most senior international civil servant has warned.

Kemal Dervis, the architect of Turkey's economic recovery who now runs the United Nations Development Programme, said that constant EU pressure and lecturing, seen by Ankara as raising the bar for membership, was "no longer on".

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"A very deep shift in Turkish public opinion" meant it was no longer a political asset for politicians to be "strongly pro-EU", Mr Dervis told the FT.

Mr Dervis was speaking on a visit to London this week to promote the UN's human development report on water and prepare a strategy on climate change. Mr Dervis agreed this would build on the economic analysis of the problem by Sir Nicholas Stern, the British former chief economist of the World Bank.

Mr Dervis is also a member of a high-level panel that next week comes up with proposals on how to make UN decision-making and aid more effective.

He said that since a sharp devaluation in 2001, Turkey's transformation into a "very credible economic powerhouse" - with the help of deep reforms backed by loans from the International Monetary Fund - had "lifted Turks' self-confidence".

However, many EU officials fault Turkey for slowing the pace of reforms over the past two years.

The scale of Turkey's difficulties was thrown into stark relief this week when Costas Karamanlis, Greek prime minister, criticised Ankara for failing to do more on constitutional and human rights reform.

But Mr Dervis, a former economy minister, argued that big progress on a previously bad human rights record meant "Turks feel they have done their bit".

For all the criticism - including a Commission report next week that will highlight Turkey's shortcomings on human rights - wide-ranging liberalisation had included the opening of new churches when some EU capitals still had no mosque.

International indicators showing the Turkish economy was stronger and corruption weaker than that of some new EU members reinforced a sense in Turkey that EU objections were not "really about human rights" but more about its predominantly Muslim identity and fears of unemployed Turkish workers swamping the EU.

To avert the risk of the relationship "falling apart", Mr Dervis said "Europe needs to change the way it talks to Turkey". This need-ed to happen along the lines of "Look, please understand we have to take extra care [in admitting new members] but we will get there eventually. You are Europeans and we want to build a Europe where Muslims have a natural place. But we have problems including governance [in EU decision-making], and unemployment."

Such problems could be solved by setting "objective criteria" - such as a rule Turkish workers would only be allowed full freedom of movement inside the bloc once Turkish unemployment was below the EU average.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006