The EU Policy of the Republican People's Party under Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu: A New Wine in an Old Wine Cellar

Abstract

This article scrutinizes the determinants of the European Union (EU) policy of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the main opposition party in Turkey under the leadership of Kılıçdaroğlu. Critically discussing the role of party ideology concerning attitudes toward EU accession, the article examines whether the CHP's ideology changed after Kılıçdaroğlu and if so, how this ideological shift affected the party's euroskeptic stance. The article overall argues that the leadership change enabled the party to withdraw its nationalistic stance and embrace a social democratic rhetoric. However, the article contends that such transformation had little effect on its euroskepticism due to the persisting endogenous (the Justice and Development Party's authoritarianism) and exogenous factors (the EU's additional conditionality) that constrain the new CHP's EU-enthusiasm.

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Didem Buhari-Gülmez, James Sloam and Ziya Öniş for their invaluable feedback.

Notes

The practical reason for the curtailment is that Turkey rejected to open its harbors and if airspace to the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member since 2004, due to the ongoing Cyprus problem between the two states.

See Gülmez “EU Policy of the Republican People's Party”, 423–436 and Celep, “Republican People's Party and Turkey's EU Membership,” 423–434.

For a recent analysis of “North Carolina school,” see Mudde, “Sussex v. North Carolina,” 1–22.

Hooghe, Marks, and Wilson, “Does Left/Right Structure Party Positions on European Integration?” 965–989.

Marks et al., “Party Competition and European Integration in the East and West,” 157.

Ibid.

Ibid., 167.

Ibid., 159.

Ibid., 161.

Ibid.

Ibid., 159.

Ibid., 160.

Schimmelfennig, “EU Political Accession Conditionality after the 2004 Enlargement,” 921.

Ibid.

Suchman, “Managing Legitimacy,” 578.

Ibid.

Güneş-Ayata, “Republican People's Party,” 103.

Keyman and Öniş, “Globalization and Social Democracy in the European Periphery,” 214.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Öniş and Grigoriadis, “Europe and the Impasse of Centre-Left Politics in Turkey,” 264.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid., 267.

Ibid., 265.

Ciddi, “Republican People's Party and the 2007 General Elections,” 437–455.

Marks et al., “Party Competition and European Integration in the East and West”, 157.

For the concept of assertive secularism, see Kuru, Secularism and State Policies Towards Religion, 103–235.

Öniş and Grigoriadis, “Europe and the Impasse of Centre-Left Politics in Turkey,” 267.

Ciddi, “Republican People's Party and the 2007 General Elections,” 446.

It is the founding treaty of the Turkish Republic in 1923. The treaty only grants minority status to non-Muslim communities in Turkey, namely Greeks, Jews and Armenians.

“Kılıçdaroğlu: Siyasi hayatımı feda etmeye hazırım” [Kılıçdaroğlu: I am ready to sacrifice my political career], Vatan, March 9, 2012.

Cengiz and Hoffmann, “2011 General Elections in Turkey,” 261.

Fikret Bila, “‘Ben Mustafa Kemal demeyi seviyorum” [I like calling him Mustafa Kemal], Milliyet, February 28, 2012.

Yalçın Doğan, “Altı Ok kabuğunu kırdı” [Six arrows cracked its shell], Hürriyet, February 29, 2012.

Ibid.

“Vatansever Solcuyuz” [We are patriotic leftists], Hürriyet, July 14, 2006.

“Kılıçdaroğlu: Siyasi hayatımı feda etmeye hazırım” [Kılıçdaroğlu: I am ready to sacrifice my political career], Vatan, March 9, 2012.

Baykal's speech in the CHP Parliamentary Group reunion, June 3, 2003.

Ibid.

Ayata and Güneş-Ayata, “Center-Left Parties in Turkey,” 223.

Yılmaz, “Euroskepticism in Turkey,” 196.

“CHP'den 301 değişikliği açıklaması” [CHP's article 301 statement], Hürriyet, April 14, 2008.

“CHP: Ya AKP gidecek, ya da Kıbrıs elden çıkacak” [CHP: Either AKP will go or Cyprus will be lost], Hürriyet, October 19, 2006.

Muharrem Sarıkaya, “Papa ve 301 AB'nin sorunu” [The Pope and the article 301 are the EU's problems], Sabah, September 20, 2006.

Baykal's speech in the CHP Parliamentary Group reunion, January 16, 2006.

Ibid.

“Baykal: AB olmazsa dünyanın sonu değil” [Baykal: If Turkey won't become an EU member, it is not the end of the world], Hürriyet, December 7, 2006.

Buhari-Gülmez, “Ombudsmanship and Turkey's Europeanization in ‘World Society’,” 480–1.

Minutes of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Term 23, Legislative Year 5, Vol. 78, Session 4, October 7, 2010.

Minutes of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Term 23, Legislative Year 4, Vol. 70, Session 110, June 2, 2010.

Gülmez “The EU Policy of the Republican People's Party,” 425.

Minutes of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Term 23, Legislative Year 5, Vol. 91, Session 55, January 28, 2011.

Keyman and Öniş, “Globalization and Social Democracy in the European Periphery,” 214.

Baykal's speech in the CHP Parliamentary Group reunion, December 17, 2002.

“Baykal: Ek Protokol imzalanmamalı” [Baykal: the additional protocol must not be signed], Hürriyet, July 27, 2005.

Öymen, “Turkey-EU Relations, Problems and Prospects.”

“Bu müzakerelerden tam üyelik çıkmaz” [These negotiations won't bring EU membership], Hürriyet, October 8, 2004.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Minutes of the Turkish Grand National Assembly, Term 23, Legislative Year 5, Vol. 89, Session 47, January 5, 2011.

“Berlin and Paris Unite over Turkey,” Financial Times, May 11, 2009.

Baykal's speech at the CHP Parliamentary Group reunion, May 12, 2009.

Öymen's speech at Bilkent University, Ankara, November 7, 2005. Accessed March 9, 2012. http://www.onuroymen.com/arsiv/453.

Ibid.

Ibid.

The issues of continental shelf and territorial waters in the Aegean Sea are ongoing problems between Greece and Turkey; while the Cyprus problem is the unresolved issue between Cyprus and Turkey.

Buhari-Gülmez, “Europeanization of Foreign Policy and World Culture,” 81–95.

Murat Yetkin, “AB Büyükelçileri: Kılıçdaroğlu çok farklı” [The EU ambassadors: Kılıçdaroğlu is very different], Radikal, June 25, 2010.

“CHP'ye Avrupa desteği” [European support to CHP], Milliyet, August 15, 2010.

“Kılıçdaroğlu Brüksel'de” [Kılıçdaroğlu in Brussels], Vatan, September 15, 2010.

“Kılıçdaroğlu BBC'ye konuştu: AB ile yeni başlangıç hedefliyoruz” [Kılıçdaroğlu spoke to BBC: we aim for a new beginning with the EU], BBC Turkish, July 2, 2010.

Kılıçdaroğlu's speech in the CHP's parliamentary group reunion, October 5, 2010.

Ibid.

The disputed reforms included the changes in the number and the election procedures of members of the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Judges and Public Prosecutors, and the new arrangements for party closures.

It is the name of an alleged terrorist organization which would attempt a coup d’état against the AKP government. Thousands of suspects were arrested including high-ranked army officers, journalists, academics. The trials still continue. The Turkish public opinion is divided over the existence of such an organization. The CHP argues that the law suit was opened with the motivation to persecute the opposition. For two different views on the Ergenekon case, see Jenkins, “Ergenekon, Sledgehammer, and the Politics of Turkish Justice,” 1–9 and Grigoriadis and Özer, “Mutations of Turkish Nationalism,” 101–13.

European Commission's Progress Report on Turkey, SEC (2010) 1327, November 9, 2010, 7.

Ibid.

Ibid., 20.

European Parliament's Resolution on Turkey's progress report 2009, B7-0068/2010, February 2, 2010, 4.

Şükrü Küçükşahin, ‘Bugün için laiklik tehlikede diyemem’ [I cannot say secularism is in danger for today], Hürriyet, September 22, 2010.

‘Kılıçdaroğlu Brüksel'de açıklama yaptı’ [Kılıçdaroğlu made a statement in Brussels], Hürriyet, September 15, 2010.

Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, ‘Opposition being silenced in Turkey’, The Washington Post, February 6, 2012.

“Kılıçdaroğlu: AK Parti, AB'yi kullandı” [Kılıçdaroğlu: AK Party used the EU], CNN TURK, December 11, 2011.

‘Kılıçdaroğlu: Başbakan’ın Avrupa Birliği diye bir vizyonu kalmadı’ [Kılıçdaroğlu: the Prime Minister has no longer a vision for EU membership], EurActiv, September 9, 2011.

CHP's 2011 Election Manifesto, 125. Accessed March 2, 2012. http://www.chp.org.tr/wp-content/uploads/secimbildirgesi.pdf.

“Interview with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu,” Turkish Policy Quarterly 9 (2010): 25.

CHP's 2011 Election Manifesto, 124.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Ibid.

“Interview with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu,” 25.

Ibid.

CHP's 2011 Election Manifesto, 123.

Ibid., 124.

Ibid., 125.