Prime Minister’s speech at a meeting with the Turkish Chamber of Commerce, 17 April 2008

I would like to start by thanking the organizers and the Turkish Ambassador to Prague, His Excellency Mr Targay, for this event. I firmly believe that this conference and your stay here will mark another historic watershed and will provide the impetus to establish new business contacts. And that it will be an opportunity to share know-how on how to work with EU operational programmes. I am extremely pleased about this event, because it means we are keeping a promise I made in November last year during Prime Minister Erdogan’s visit to Prague: that we stand ready to pass on our experience from the EU negotiating and accession process. Friends should help each other; we do not want you to suffer the experience of some of the mistakes we made, and we will be pleased to share knowledge that could help Turkey progress towards full EU membership.

The issue of Turkey’s future integration into the EU is not something I can avoid in my speech today. The economic relations of our two countries hinge on this. In the wake of our accession, it is business with other EU Member States that has developed fastest, now accounting for 85% of our total volume of trade.

The debate on Turkish membership is not just a debate on the future of that great country, on whether it will have the strength and the will to comply with all criteria and requirements. It is also a debate on the future of the EU. Whether it can reach a modus vivendi so that the membership of a country such as Turkey is mutually beneficial. I personally support an EU that is heterogeneous rather than unified. A community of countries which, on the one hand, recognize common values and play by the rules of the game. But which, on the other hand, retain their comparative advantages and act on their different economic interests and conditions. Such a Union must be open to further enlargement; it must not close in on itself. It must be free and liberal internally and in relation to the outer world. It must abandon the path of increasing degrees of regulation and unification and be flexible and heterogeneous.

When I say that the Czech government prefers such a future form of Europe and that it also supports Turkey’s full EU membership, I am actually saying one and the same thing. Turkey can never be a member of a unified, encapsulated Union. And an EU that rejects further enlargement can never be the liberal, open Europe that will remain faithful to its civilization mission to spread the area of freedom, security, stability and prosperity. Therefore, we endorse full membership for Turkey. Not just some substitute in the vein of a privileged partnership. European legislation in force does not even recognize the status of ‘privileged partnership’, and no candidate from the previous rounds of enlargement has been confronted with such a category. If the concept of privileged partnership is to be a responsibly intended document for future discussion on Turkey’s integration into the EU, it should at least outline solutions to the following groups of questions: What should this sort of affiliation encompass precisely? Should this model of cooperation be applied only in the case of Turkey, or also in relation to other countries that the EU currently includes in its neighbourhood policy, or that express an interest in the future in becoming EU members? From the qualitative perspective, how exactly does this form of cooperation differ from full membership? Besides these material questions, the proposal of privileged partnership also gives rise to a fundamental philosophical issue: In what way should this partnership be privileged and in relation to whom? What all considerations about privileged partnership have in common is the effort to tap the economic potential of Turkey – or its market of seventy million – and its geopolitical position as much as possible, along with its significance for security strategy purposes. On the other hand, these proposals are very vague as regards Turkey’s privileged access to the Union’s internal market and its representation in the European Commission or in the Council of Ministers for the Internal Market. The disproportion between the advantages obtained by the EU and the insufficient political representation of Turkey in decision-making and executive bodies of the EU is obvious. Besides these doubts, I don’t think it is right for the rules to be changed during the game. The EU, having invited Turkey to become an accession country and having granted it that status, must keep its promises.

Naturally, Turkey must comply with all conditions, just as the countries before it – including the Czech Republic – had to. But there is no need to add extra conditions or expand those that already exist. They are hard conditions, and we are in the best position to confirm that. On the other hand, the Copenhagen criteria are fair, because they clearly define, in advance, the conditions that an accession country must fulfil. For Turkey, this is sure to be a long, complicated path, and no major advances can be expected until the second half of next year. Nevertheless, we would like to open at least two accession chapters during the Czech Presidency. We are interested in welcoming Turkey among fully-fledged EU members. Only full membership can result in mutually beneficial trade. The influence of membership, or even the prospect of membership, on trade relations is underscored by the fact that foreign-capital interest in investing in Turkey shot up after accession talks were launched in 2005. In that year, the volume of foreign direct investment went up to USD 9.6 billion – three and a half times more than in 2004. In 2006, it increased to USD 17.4 billion. The largest share (almost half of this influx) comes from EU Member States (the Netherlands, Germany, Italy, the United Kingdom, France).

As for trade relations with the Czech Republic, these are sure to gain momentum as Turkey comes closer to the EU. Nevertheless, we can already build on the long-standing tradition originating in the period just after the First World War. Over the years, Czechoslovakia contributed to the construction of the Turkish industrial base with supplies of prominent capital assets, such as the Uşak sugar factory, the breweries of Istanbul and Ankara, the Soma power station, and a tyre manufacturing plant. In the context of production cooperation, assembly plants were built for commercial vehicles, JAWA 350 motorbikes, fork-lift trucks and lathes. We have shown that we can tap into this tradition. Trade between the Czech Republic and Turkey has steadily risen over the past eight years. Last year we reported a record volume of USD 1,520.6 billion, with imports and exports more or less balanced (Turkish exports exceeded Czech exports by almost sixty million dollars). In the last five years, the volume of trade has quadrupled. Turkey is the seventeenth largest economy in the world, with huge potential for further growth. Of all the fields in which we can harness that potential, I would point out at least tourism. We are interested in paying special attention in the future to the development of commercial and economic cooperation geared towards enhancement. This means joint ventures, investments, penetration on third markets, etc. We are highly mindful of the fundamental significance of Turkey in safeguarding Europe’s energy. Turkey already plays the pre-eminent role of energy corridor for shipments of oil and natural gas. It hosts the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum gas pipeline, and there are plans to build the Nabucco gas pipeline.

Energy is strongly bound up with ecology, a field on which the EU places a great emphasis. The Czech Republic stands ready to contribute to technologies for the desulphurization of cogeneration plants. We also offer supplies of cutting-edge technology for environmental projects in Turkey. We have extensive experience in this area. After 1990, we made significant headway in improving the environment, and our companies wield the necessary know-how. I have spoken here about Turkey’s EU membership and about trade relations. As I have indicated, both areas are closely related. Integration into the EU will boost business. On the other hand, business can also support the European idea. If you allow, at this point I would like to appeal to you as representatives of business. Just as there is a positive link between accession talks and investor interest, there is also a downside. Fortunately, the influx of foreign investments has not triggered fluctuations in the negotiation process. This positive trend is clearly rooted in Turkey’s continuing economic growth and the Turkish government’s determination to make progress with the reform process and accession talks. However, the European Union should realize the risks and dangers that its frequently ambivalent approach to Turkish aspirations of membership may elicit.

If the Union suddenly slams the door on Turkey, foreign investors will be deprived of significant benefits from the gradual process of the approximation of Turkish and European legislation, the strong dynamism of the Turkish economy and the opening of all market sectors. They would have to respond to this. Therefore, companies and entrepreneurs should support the reform process in Turkey by demonstrating to citizens and the Turkish government what specific advantages EU membership will give them. Make a strong voice in support of European enlargement. Today very few politicians speak openly i favour of Turkish membership of the EU. Yet the business community, Turkish enterprises and Czech firms with branches in Turkey, can see every day, based on their own experience, the transformation and reform progress in the country. Many of those people are persuading their superiors to maintain or expand their branches and investments in Turkey. Unfortunately, few people hear that voice outside the office or the meeting room. Be a shared and audible voice, become involved more publicly in favour of Turkey’s path towards Europe.

I am sure that Turkey’s full EU membership will benefit everyone. For the citizens of today’s Union and for the citizens of Turkey. For entrepreneurs on both sides. And for the future of Europe, which will thus show how loyal it is to its fundamental values. Loyal to the idea of freedom and openness that transgresses even cultural limits that are hard to surmount.