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4.6 Europeanization Analysis

If we examine whether and to what extent the changes were related to the EU, we have to take into account several important factors, similarly as they were shown in the chapter about the National Security Council. As first, the historical context is as important as in the case of the NSC. For example recognizing of minority communities is based on the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne, what then implies the difficulties with actual acknowledgement of the rights of different minority groups. The internal actors have to be taken to account, like the attitude of government or political parties to particular issues and their pro-activity in this policy area. Besides these concrete actors’ behavior it is also the general situation between the reformist and conservative forces that affects the pace of changes and as well as their later evaluation.⁶⁵ Domestic as well as external events or developments play a significant role too. As an example we can use the occurrences in the South-East part and Northern Iraq that significantly influence the decisions concerning the rights of minorities, particularly of the Kurdish minority.

When we want to examine the extent to which the policy was affected by the EU we can observe practically on the first sight the influence is truly considerable. First of all, we see the impetus from the EU side, creating adaptational pressures and on their basis the state changes its domestic policy. In the case of human rights this is obvious in the sense that it constitutes one of the Copenhagen political criteria, thus fulfilling the EU requirements in this field means a condition sine qua non for Turkey’s membership. In other words, and following the time consequences too, we can see that the EU conditionality (as declaration of Turkey as a candidate state in 1999, or Accession Partnership from 2000) led to eminent credibility of the membership (after Copenhagen Summit 2002) and these events were immediately followed by action on the field of legislation changes. As it was mentioned, most of them were adopted in the period of 2001 to 2004 which covers both coalition and beginning of single party government. This indicates that the initial strong motion was followed by fast reaction of changing the domestic structure under the demanded rules. Even the name of changes adopted – harmonization packages – imply the effort to transform the prevailing laws and rules according to the existing external demands.

The recession of the activities performed by the government in the human rights policy after this period can be seen as a result of the government’s overall decrease in emphasizing and promoting the EU-related reforms in that time. It can be assumed that it was also affected by lack of further impulsion from the EU side which would be as strong as was brought by the above mentioned ones in the first period. Another explanation for this state can be the need to proceed with the implementation of all the swiftly adopted laws, and to further work on their adaption to the EU requirements (which was also emphasized forcefully by the EU). Also the external factors played crucial role. As I already remarked, one of them we can name the events in Iraq (and especially Northern Iraq) after the US operation in 2003, because they influenced significantly the attitude to the minorities’ rights, and pointed at the situation of the Kurdish minority in domestic as well as international context. Therefore we may suppose the government did not want to pursue or slowed down other reforms in this area.

Concerning the freedom of expression and mainly its connection to Article 301 it is often stressed by the political elite that also other European nations have similar article and the EU does not require their transformation as it does in Turkish case. As we could have already seen in some of the previous parts, the nationality and national sovereignty is again taking high place in the political elite considerations of possible pursuing further reforms.

Now I will try to analyze the process of Europeanization in the human rights policy by examining the mechanisms introduced by Knill and Lehmkuhl.

In the area of institutional adoption a significant transformation has been made. Numerous institutions were established with different tasks – to identify difficulties with implementing the legislation, to deal with the complaints concerning the human rights abuse, to conduct the investigation in such cases, to give recommendations to the government – and also on different levels – parliamentary, ministerial, local or gendarmerie. As the most important point I consider bringing the NGOs to these bodies to serious discussion with the political representative, as until the examined era the civil society did not possess really strong voice in the issue of human rights. Generally, bringing the media, NGOs and business circles together to negotiate with the politicians is a significant step towards democratization of this area. We have to note as well that the functioning of many of these organs is still being criticized from the EU side as they do not perform in the way which is perceived at the EU level as satisfactory.

These indicated changes are connected to the change in distribution of power and transformation in the framework of expectations. With creating new institutions responsible for actual exercise of the right set by the laws, also the powers in the system are distributed in a different way. The fact of fostering the role of NGOs is as important here as in the institutional point of view. It has to be stated that they did not gain an overwhelming power in the system of human rights policy functioning, but even the raising their position by placing them in special organs is a considerable change. More power was given to European and International Instances, by adopting several amendments signifying that international agreements on fundamental rights and liberties will be respected as part of the legal system, thereby guaranteeing among others the application of the European Convention of Human Rights and other international agreements pertaining to fundamental rights and liberties more effectively.

The framework of expectations of domestic policy, or the actors’ behavior can also be affected by the described legal and institutional changes. We can observe changes in the behavior of the courts, lawyers, police, gendarmerie and so forth. As an example the case of Orhan Pamuk can serve, against whom a complaint was filed through a civil initiative by the Lawyers Union claiming that his statement contravened Article 301. However, two public prosecutors from Istanbul on the grounds that this would not constitute a legal case rejected this complaint, and it was taken to court after agreement with a third public prosecutor. The court decided that the permission of the Ministry of Justice was required, and hence set a precedent for the Pamuk case. I assume that the example of such events and actors’ activities illustrate the significant influence of the changes in the legal system, adopted in approximately last ten years on the basis of the EU requirements, on exercising the human rights policy.

When we take the Bulmer and Radaelli’s approach to EU policy-making, identifying four different modes, we could affirm that the case of human rights policy in Turkey comes under the type of governance by hierarchy. And concretely it can be inscribed to positive integration which requires implying of an active national policy and the agreed policies have to be “downloaded” to a national level and which presents the most distinct form of Europeanization using the mechanism of institutional adaption.