ANKARA Turkey — Turkey’s effort to join the European Union is still far from being realized. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has justifiably expressed his frustration with this, which was set as a state policy since more than a half-century ago. As he is, however, openly lambasting the country’s past at any given opportunity, starting from the military coups to the generals' role in policy-making; from the alleged state restrictions that prevented pious Muslims like him from practicing Islam to the previous governments’ economic failures, the Europeans take even a more critical look at Turkey — coupled with all of the things that Erdogan has been critical about this country’s past as well as the size of its population, belonging to a different culture, tradition and religion.

Therefore, one should applaud German Chancellor Angela Merkel honestly saying at a joint news conference with Erdogan, while wrapping up her two-day visit to Turkey on Monday [Feb. 25], that she has “hesitations concerning Turkey’s full European Union membership.” She also stated: “We are conducting negotiations whose outcome is open-ended, that is to say the results are not known.”  

Baha Gungor, Deutsche Welle’s head of the Turkish language section, who’s also traveling with the chancellor, told Al-Monitor that Merkel had actually expressed a well-known secret. “Before Turkey submitted its application for formal membership into the European Community in April 1987, Germans actually advised them [Turkey] ... that they [Turkey] should first focus on improving the welfare of the country so that when they file the formal application for membership, there can be no excuse to reject Turkey,” Gungor said. “They [Germans] also said, 'But if you file for formal application now, we won’t say "no" to you, but we will make you miserable.'” So what Merkel says now is no different than the advice that Turkey received in the late '80s.

Since then Turkey has surely shown significant progress in all fields — including its democracy, but it’s still far from embracing the basic tenants of a free society. Today, there is no military that can conduct a coup. Nearly 400 former and current military personnel — some high-ranking — are behind bars accused of being terrorists, allegedly for preparing plans to overthrow the current government. The total number of accused military personnel with the same charge nears 1,000 — but their prosecution continues them without being imprisoned.  According to Reporters without Borders, 37 journalists are imprisoned in Turkey, which ranks Turkey behind China and Iran in freedom of media.