Greece: The Farmers' Strike

EA's Fulya Inci reports:

A week-long blockade by Greek farmers, protesting the Government's austerity measures in agriculture and demanding greater support for agricultural products, ended early Sunday.

The farmers had blocked the border with Bulgaria with tractors and reapers, refusing passage of vehicles except those with only passengers. “Cars and trucks carrying goods to destinations ranging from Poland to Italy were stranded on both sides of the border.”

During the protests, diplomatic tension rose with Bulgarian officials accused Greek authorities of not doing enough to stop the blockade. Bulgarian Prime Minister Boyko Borisov's visit to the border was criticised by Greek media of acting “undiplomatic”.

Borisov has been ordered the establishment of a special department to settle the claims of Bulgarian companies. Economy Minister Traicho Traikov told Parliament that Bulgaria had lost “three million euros per day", and the Agriculture Ministry and Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism received complaints from firms reporting a total loss of approximately 77.5 million leva ($55.6 million).  The companies’ demands for compensation will be presented on European Commission for Greece’s attention.

Turkey Inside Line: The Evolving Relationship with Russia

EA's Fulya Inci writes:

Last week, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan made a two-day trip to Moscow, with energy, trade and the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute high on the agenda. Erdogan and senior members of his government, in talks with Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Dmitri Medvedev, launched the process for an agreement on visa-free travel for the citizens of both countries and took important steps on the use of the Turkish lira, and the Russian ruble in bilateral trade. Most significantly, the two sides signed a declaration of cooperation to construct Turkey’s first nuclear power plant.

The energy issue is the rucial factor in the economic and trading relations of Turkey and Russia. Turkey is highly dependent on Russian gas but now also wants to become a major energy corridor, transporting that gas to the Middle East. This South Stream rivals the U.S. and EU-backed Nabucco pipeline plan, even though Ankara also backs Nabucco  and says the two projects should complement each other.



A Turkish government commission is examining the environmental concerns and high-cost route of South Stream, but it has also allowed Moscow to carry out preliminary work off the Black Sea coast. It also has a commitment from Russia to join a prospective Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline via Turkey, as Ankara seeks to develop its geostrategic position and create new cooperation opportunities in the region.

Bilateral trade is also important between the two countries. It reached $33 billion in 2008. There has been an unexpected decrease in 2009 due to the global economic crisis, but both countries’ leaders expressed the desire to triple the figure by 2015.

In contrast to the positive steps in energy and trade, the trip did not seem to reward Turkey’s Nagorno-Karabakh policy. Putin told Erdoğan that “Turkey should not link the Nagorno-Karabakh problem between Armenia and Azerbaijan to the normalization of its bilateral relations with Armenia.”

In October, Turkey and Armenia signed agreements to normalize diplomatic relations, after decades of tension over the mass killing of Turkey's Armenian population in the early 20th century. The two sides also discussed reopening borders that Turkey had closed in 1993 because of Armenia's occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh, a largely Armenian- populated part of Azerbaijan.

As a close ally of Azerbaijan, Turkey “first wants to see progress toward the solution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict before opening its border with Armenia”. Putin’s remarks show that Russia does not want Turkey to slow down the normalization process because of Nagorno-Karabakh’s future.

President Medvedev is expected to come to Turkey on May, and the two sides are hopeful for developing cooperation. It is an important negotiation, given that shifting power in regions such as the Middle East is bringing new opportunities and risks for both countries.

Croatia: Out of the Presidential Election and into European Union?

EA correspondent Fulya Inci writes:

Last Sunday, Crotians voted in a presidential runoff. Ivo Josipovic, the candidate of the main opposition, the Social Democratic Party (SDP), won about 6o percent of the votes to defeat populist Zagreb Mayor Milan Bandic.

Current President Stipe Mesic interpreted the result as a victory for European Crotia. Josipovic told his celebrating supporters:

I want a European Croatia, a Croatia that will be one of the shining stars in the European sky. This would be not only through EU membership but by values that we stand for --- democracy, freedom, human rights, rule of law, minority rights and religious freedom.

Josipovic’s attitude during the presidential campaign has been largely supported by the media, contrary to the treatment of his rival, Bandic, who was kicked out of SDP after deciding to run for President. Bandic had claimed that Croatia would be returned to Communist rule under Josipovic and had turned to the influential Catholic Church for support.



In spite of his clear victory, the newly-elected President is likely to have difficulty solving current problems. Crotia faces the challenges of economic shrinkage, reforms needed for EU entry, and ongoing disputes with neighbouring countries, especially Serbia. Croatia and Serbia have filed lawsuits against each other at the International Court of Justice over alleged war crimes and Crotia’s relations with Kosovo, which declared independence from Serbia in February 2008.

Josipovic remains hopeful, “We all want a country where work is paid for and crime is punished… we will win the fight against the economic crisis, the fight against corruption and crime, the fight against poverty and misery.”

Josipovic will assume the Presidency on 18 February.

Turkey: Is the EU Shutting Out Ankara?

Our newest correspondent, Fulya Inci, notes difficulties over Turkey's application to join the European Union:

Talks over Turkey's accession to the European Union have recently been frozen. Indeed, in Turkey, the issue has been eclipsed on the agenda by domestic problems and Ankara's pursuit of engagement withe neighbouring countries. Some European leaders, meanwhile, continue their campaign against Turkey’s accession. Although a new chapter in Europe opened last month with the Treaty of Lisbon, the hostility of Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany over expansion to include Ankara is unabated.

David Cronin from The Guardian tries to break the deadlock of “unresolved questions”, the advising European leaders to stop acting like a Christian club and deviating from their claims of democracy and “cherish[ing] diversity.” Cronin suggests that Turkey take positive steps over Cyprus and human rights while the EU offers an advance on membership status:

Istanbul is haunted by a unique type of melancholy, Orhan Pamuk writes in his wondrous book on Turkey's largest city. Known as hüzün, "the black mood shared by millions of people together" is particularly dense on cold winter mornings "when the sun suddenly falls on the Bosphorus and the faint vapour almost rises from the surface".

Many Turks must be overcome by a comparable weariness (this one not mitigated by beautiful scenery) when they hear of their country's never-ending quest for membership of the European Union. More than 22 years after Turkey first applied to join, the prospect of its EU entry seems as remote as ever, even if formal accession talks began in 2005.

With progress in those negotiations already sluggish, primarily because of unresolved questions over the future of Cyprus, there is now a new hurdle to be overcome. Bulgaria has indicated it will block Turkey's membership unless compensation is paid for the expulsion of Thracians by Ottoman forces in the early 20th century.

It is only right that Turkey should be required to improve its human rights record in order to join the union. The aforementioned Pamuk is among those to have fallen victim to its restrictions on free speech; the Nobel laureate was prosecuted over a 2005 interview in which he discussed the genocide perpetrated by Ottoman forces against 1.5m Armenians nine decades earlier. While charges against him were eventually erased on a technicality and while important gestures of friendship towards Armenia have been made by the present Turkish leadership, the Ankara authorities continue to muffle voices of dissent. This has been illustrated by a ruling from the Turkish constitutional court last month, banning the Kurdish Democratic Society party.

Such curbs on expression, however, have nothing to do with the antipathy directed at Turkey by Nicolas Sarkozy in France and Angela Merkel in Germany. Rather, their opposition to Turkey's bid for EU membership is explained by what a columnist in the Turkish newspaper Hürriyet accurately described as "basic facts not pronounced openly" on Monday. "Turkey is a Muslim country," Mehmet Ali Birand wrote. "And Europe is not ready yet to accept a Muslim country in the EU."

This anti-Turkish bias is tantamount to racism. Even though the EU institutions officially claim to cherish diversity, there is a tacit agreement among some of their most powerful leaders that the union must remain predominantly Christian. Herman Van Rompuy, the EU's new president, is one of the few to have voiced this desire in a public forum (and that was long before his recent elevation in status). "The universal values which are in force in Europe, and which are also fundamental values of Christianity, will lose vigour with the entry of a large Islamic country such as Turkey," he told a meeting at the Belgian parliament in 2004.

As a Christian myself (albeit not a devout one), I am not sure what teachings of the poor Nazarene that Van Rompuy professes to follow provide a justification for slamming the door on adherents to another faith. If a golf club adopted a similar policy of exclusion, there is a strong likelihood it would be sued for breaching equality laws. The EU is nominally a club of democracies; why is it allowed to discriminate on religious grounds?