On October 3rd, the European Union Enlargement Commission began accession negotiations with Turkey. This marks a historic moment for the predominantly Muslim country as well as for the European Union. Should the EU accept Turkey as one of its members—an event that, despite recent developments, is still at least ten years away—it would bring Europe right to the doorstep of the Middle East and shatter its image as a “Christian club”.

Of the 26 EU member-nations, Austria led the 11th-hour ramblings against full EU membership for the Eastern Mediterranean country. Vienna advocated special-status recognition for Turkey, believing that Turkey was simply too culturally, economically, and religiously different from the rest of Europe. Not surprisingly, the move was not well-received in Turkey, forcing Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan to call for no compromise on the conditions to opening entry talks. Turkey’s road to the point in the EU membership process has been anything but easy.

In 1952, Turkey, along with Greece, was admitted in to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the first phase of enlargement for that institution. NATO membership is widely considered a prerequisite to EU membership, and in 1963 Turkey first filed the appropriate documents for EU membership. It then, as it still does now, came across fierce opposition from a number of EU states including Germany, which has a large Turkish exile community, and France.

Of course, the Europe of the early 1960s differs greatly from that of today. The Cold War is over, there are no longer East and West Germanys, and the continent has gone through enormous changes demographically. Turkey itself is a different country than it once was.
Although still considered poor for European standards, Turkey’s socioeconomic developments of the last 40 years have made it a vastly different place today. The once cliché “Turkish Prison” analogies and flagrant human rights violations have become a thing of the past, thanks in no small part to reforms recommended by the EU Enlargement Commission. Now, Turkey has far more in common with most EU member states today than was the case just a decade ago.

Turkey still struggles to stabilize its economy. While inflation has been lowered to single digits, the economy as a whole has suffered sharp decline over the last ten years. Tighter fiscal policies, IMF backing, and an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) of late have brought the economy at an upswing, but like many emerging markets, Turkey remains crippled by a high level of both internal and external debt. In fact, the public sector fiscal deficit exceeds 6% of gross domestic product.

The new pot of gold for emerging markets like Turkey is FDI. Currently FDI in Turkey only accounts for $1 billion annually, EU membership offers Turkey an unprecedented opportunity to bring in more foreign funds. Unlike many EU nations, Turkey has an abundance of low to medium-skilled labor—a primary factor foreign direct investors look for when choosing places to do business. If Turkey enters the EU bloc, investors will be more willing and able to set up shop in Turkey bring economic prosperity to the region.

Despite all Turkey’s incentives to seek EU membership, the issue of Cyprus is one that continues to divide Turkey and the EU. Cyprus is a divided island in the Mediterranean with its own respective Greek and Turkish sections. A clause in the draft for accession negotiations demanded Ankara not block the accession of Cyprus (an EU state in its own right) to NATO. Ankara’s concern was over the wording of the document that could give a divided Cyprus a lever to join the NATO defense alliance without a UN-brokered peace settlement on Cyprus. Fortunately, Cyprus did not seem to hinder the October 3 decision to continue the accession talks. There are profound political and implications for both the EU and Turkey should the two unite.

Politically, Turkish admission into the EU has far more benefits than costs. The EU has already shed its guise as a Western institution by admitting former Warsaw Pact nations—including its first Muslim state would further disassociate it from this connotation. Not only would the EU gain some leverage in Middle Eastern and the Caucasus affairs, but it looks to gain more leverage worldwide.

For Turkey, EU membership is an opportunity to make peace with its neighbors by resolving some longstanding issues. Armenia, a nation whose people suffered the first genocide of the twentieth century at the hands of the Ottoman Turks is now an independent state on Turkey’s Eastern border. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, that border has remained closed. Yet Armenia has become Turkey’s main non-European supporter for accession into the EU. The Kurds, another nationality victimized by past Turkish aggression, are also cheering the way for Turkish EU membership.

The stars seem to be aligned this time for Turkey and the European Union