Towards a Europe with a future
talking points of a Turkish citizen for other Eurosceptics
courtesy by:ADAM Social Sciences Research Center, Istanbul & Good Offices Group of European Lawmakers
research contributed by: Irina Gerassimova, UN Library Geneva (url: www.solami.com/turkey.htm) swissbit@solami.com

1.    Commerce treaties in force between Turkey and EU Members

France         Turquie          31.8.1946  (http://www.solami.com/tfrance.pdf)
Germany        Türkei           27.5.1930  (.../tgermany30.pdf)
                                27.2.1952  (.../tgermany52.pdf)
Italie         Turchia         29.12.1936  (.../titalie.pdf)
Netherlands    Turkije         21.11.1929  (.../tnetherlands29.pdf)
                                 6.9.1949  (.../tnetherlands49.pdf)
United Kingdom Turkey            1.3.1930  (.../tunitedkingdom30.pdf)
                                28.2.1957  (.../tunitedkingdom57.pdf)

2.    Commerce treaty between the UK and the US formally accepted by the EU to take precedent over any EU regulation, directive, rule, etc.

The most-favored nation, non-discriminatory and national treatment provisions contained in this treaty are understood to have served as a model for successive commerce treaties, including those concluded between Turkey and EU Member States.
USA-UK      3.7.1815 (.../1815.pdf)


 

3.    Extract from valid, yet moribund U.S. Treaties with EU States
Bilateral Treaties and Other Agreements in force as of January 1, 2003 (www.solami.com/EUUS.htm)
 

    None of the below-detailed some 130 commerce, cooperation and other treaties with the United States, which the above 10 new EU members have either inherited or concluded, will remain valid for them - if nobody stands up and Europe's new masters thus get what they labored for.  Of course, blue-eyed observers and true believers can still point to article 234 of the EU's fundamental 1957 Treaty of Rome  (identical with article 307 of its consolidated version, called the EU's basic treaty).  Indeed, in line with the 1969 Vienna Treaty Convention's articles 26 (pacta sunt servanda) and 30, the EU treaty explicitly provides for previously concluded treaties to take precedence over any EU norm, regulation or ukase!  However - and tellingly - even on this crucial subject, the proposed European Constitution [happily voted down by non-gullible French and Dutch voters, but now again up for being pushed down the throat of Europe's citizens] is all but clear; in fact, it seems to upset this legal hierarchy in favor of any new EU rule and regulation - albeit behind a smoke-screen of confusing bureaucratese!
    Moreover, senior EU members appear to be more equal than new-comers.  For, e.g., while the United Kingdom, upon joining the European Community, has been able to formally and fully maintain some 44 of its global network of treaties with its traditional trading partners, sovereign but tiny Malta now finds itself short shrifted.  For while it succeeded to get the United States, in 1952, to formally recognize Malta's successor status to treaties the U.S. had concluded with the UK, Malta's diplomats found themselves unable to get to recognize as valid for Malta what the EU bureaucracy could not effectively challenge and thus formally recognized as fully valid for the United Kingdom, namely the time-tested commerce treaty of 1815 (sic!) between the United Kingdom and the United States.
    In fact, and on paper at least, most of the 15 senior EU members have been able to keep their special relations with the U.S. and other third countries.  For the Council of the European Union has routinely prorogated some 590 treaties which they had concluded with their traditional non-EU partners (for those with the U.S., see below A).  In contrast, the Baltic States, which also have successor status vis-à-vis the Russian Federation, apparently have not found it either opportune or possible to develop privileged commercial relations with non-EU members (e.g. with Switzerland by way of the still valid commerce and establishment treaty between Switzerland and Russia of 1872).  That may require a re-thinking of the European structures, e.g. along the lines proposed already in 1990/91 by Presidents Havel and Mitterrand in the form of a European Confederation.

    To be sure, the appearance of equal treatment is not totally missing: while all the 10 EU newcomers, for all practical purposes, lost their treaty rights vis-à-vis the United States (C) and other important traditional trading partners, some of them were given a promise of protection regarding recent and far less comprehensive treaty rights with such countries as: Afghanistan, Albanien, Belarus, Cambodia, Iraq, Lybia, Macedonia, Mongolia, North Korea and Syria (B). What France got in return for the apparent loss of its treaty link with the U.S. is not clear.  For more details see also: www.solami.com/commercetreaties.htm, and check for yourself the European Union's Council decision of 15 Nov 2001, as compared to the EU Commission's related proposal of 22 Oct 2004 which the Council is expected to sign on the dotted line.

4.    The Bruges Group has as its Honorary President, The Rt Hon. the Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven. In Turkey, too it is seen as a principled, imaginative and occasionally trail-blazing European think tank inspired by the then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's Bruges speech in September 1988.

5.    Pro-Europe citizens cannot expect real social, economic and ecological progress with the way things are going at the European Union. Unelected bureaucrats are seen to undercut indispensable basic liberties and to be engaged in self-serving non-democratic law-making and apprenti-sourcery. National identity, cultural specifities and the common good are thus ever more jeopardized. It is instructive to note, and it merits reflection that the Berlin Wall fell in our, the Western direction. Yet, the EU and other international organizations more and more give the impression of being the last vestiges of by-gone ideologies and soviet-type practices - as if the Berlin Wall had fallen in the other direction. Under these circumstances, it seems appropriate to pay tribute to the foresight and initiative of Presidents Mitterrand and Havel who, in 1991, organized the first European Confederation conference in Prague (www.solami.com/a21.htm). As strong supporters of a Europe which protects each constituant part's national identity and genuinely serves the interests of its citizens, Turkey may also find it indicated to follow-up on the path opened up by Baroness Thatcher, and pursued by Presidents Mitterrand and Havel.