Defining Europe:

The concept of Europe exists as a hybrid of multiple geographic, cultural, political, and economic definitions.  These definitions vary with time and have alternatively included or excluded a range of countries in accordance with the prevailing definition of the time period.  Europe’s putative geographic boundaries leave a great deal of uncertainty, particularly with regards to Russia and Turkey, as to who can join the European Union (EU). The EU presents Europe’s collective ideals in the most cohesive and easily observable manner; it is, therefore, worthy of heightened consideration in the pursuit of a definition of Europe.

The proponents of the EEC selected Christian-Enlightenment and liberal capitalism as the two pillars of a common European identity (Hudson, 2000).  In the aftermath of World War II, the founding fathers of the European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) and later the European Economic Community (EEC) sought to establish economic prosperity and peace.  Their determination to avoid future interstate warfare, particularly between France and Germany, motivated the creation of supranational institutions to “ground European unity in Christianity and Enlightenment ideals” (Heffernan, 1998).  Christianity once served to differentiate Europe from the East, defining Christendom in opposition to Muslim invaders. In terms of liberal capitalism, Cedric Durand pointed out the importance of undistorted market competition in the Treaty of Rome (Durand, 2014). The EEC’s elimination of “quantitative restrictions on the movement of goods… the flow of payments and eventually, all tariffs,” in the words of Economic Cooperation Administration administrator Paul Hoffman, undergirded the newly constructed European free market identity (Durand, 2014).  Early thinkers, such as William Penn, hoped that economic interdependence based on the elimination of barriers to trade and travel would deter aggression between states. Assimilation to Europe’s economic identity, however, constitutes a lesser problem for many EU hopefuls than assimilating to the cultural and political norms.

The standards for entry into the EU have long included market capitalism and parliamentary democracy, while Christianity’s influence has diminished.  Greece, Portugal, and Spain entered the EU in the 1980s in large part to secure their fledgling democracies. Recently, the criteria for entry has become more rigorous (Smith, 1996).  Close economic ties to the EU occasionally stop short of membership due to cultural differences, as in the case of Turkey. The heightened standards of liberal social policies and strong democratic institutions have defined Europe’s identity to outsiders, although the institutions of some insider countries have weakened in recent years.  Geographically, the prospect of an expanding EU is also the prospect of an expanding Europe. Once a country enters the European Union, it has assimilated into the political, social, and cultural standards of the EU.

Turkey as a Case Study:

In 2000, Ray Hudson published a paper claiming that Turkey’s violations of human rights disqualify it from immediate consideration for EU membership.  The trend away from liberalism accelerated 2017 after an arguably corrupted referendum resulted in more concentrated power for President Recep Erdogan.

The ideals of Europe and the European Union, as noted above, have long included democracy, and a specific form of institutional liberal democracy.  Since a coup attempt in 2016, Turkey has undermined freedom of the press, placing hundreds of journalists in prison and shutting down media outlets in mass.  President Erdogan has thrown Turkish oppositional members of parliament in prison, along with over one hundred thousand civil servants, none of whom received proper judicial procedures.  These affronts to liberal democratic ideals led Manfred Weber to write that, “Turkey is very far away from fulfilling the currently applied conditions for EU membership.” The European Parliament, in keeping with Weber’s observations, has formally frozen Turkey’s accession process.  

In addition to the democratic barriers facing Turkey, a number of European countries refuse to recognize them as European in a cultural sense.  France and Austria overwhelmingly opposed Turkey’s membership prior to the referendum. They saw Turkey as belonging outside of the European family due to the lack of a “Christian past, Greco-Roman tradition, and Enlightenment process” (Oguzlu, 2012). Europe has long struggled to integrate distinct cultures into its identity. While the Syrian Refugee Crisis in 2011 best exemplifies the right-wing populist backlash to cultural outsiders, even the most liberal members of the European Union view cultural disjuncture with cynicism. Chancellor Angela Merkel disappointed many Turks in Germany when she declared multiculturalism had “failed, and failed utterly” in 2010 (Oguzlu, 2012). In 2015, she would echo similar sentiments in the wake of the challenges to her open-borders policy towards Syrian refugees.

The economic and security benefits of Turkish EU membership would allow Europe to better control its border with Syria, pursue further economic integration, and more easily access the wars in the Middle East where Turkey has a geographic proximity advantage (Weber, 2018).  Until Turkey addresses its democratic and cultural disconnects with Europe, such benefits seem unlikely to occur.

Sources:

Durand, Cédric. “What is Europe?.” The Cyprus Review 26, no. 1 (2014): 37-62.

Glencross, Andrew. Politics of European Integration: Political Union or a House Divided?. John Wiley & Sons, 2014

Heffernan, Michael. The meaning of Europe: Geography and geopolitics. Arnold, 1998.

Hudson, Ray. “One Europe or many? Reflections on becoming European.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 25, no. 4 (2000): 409-426.

Oğuzlu, H. Tarik. “Turkey and the European Union: Europeanization without membership.” Turkish Studies 13, no. 2 (2012): 229-243.

Smith, Michael. “The European Union and a changing Europe: establishing the boundaries of order.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 34, no. 1 (1996): 5-28.

Weber, Manfred. “EU–Turkey relations need an honest new start.” European View 17, no. 1 (2018): 52-57.