Turkey got the milk, economists will say, without actually buying the cow, thanks to a customs union with Europe that drives as much as 80 per cent of Turkish exports.
http://www.thestar.com/news/world/article/1084667--is-turkey-building-a-new-ottoman-empire
Sunday 13 November 2011
It's interesting and well-informed but I'll add my own views any way.
How did they arrive at the 80% figure? Turkey's exports to the EU itself should be between 40% and 50%. With EU economies in decline, Turkey's trade with that bloc is also set to decline, not increase.
There is no official programme to revive the Ottoman Empire but Turkey is under pressure to pursue the same objectives as the Ottoman Empire, which in turned followed the same foreign policy objectives as the Roman Empire that came before it. That is because history repeats itself and given that Turkey's circumstances are identical to its forerunners, its policies must be, too. For Turkey's foreign policy to change, Turkey would have to be moved to another part of the globe.
The comparison with Greece reminds of how Mr Zorlu, Turkey's foreign minister had explained his decision to apply for EU membership in the fifties. He had said that if Greece jumped into a swimming pool, even if we saw that the pool was empty, we must still jump in right after Greece. He was hanged by the coup of 1960. It was his successor who signed the association agreement.
White goods and home electronics are indeed among Turkey's leading export products but are they as competitive as items from the Far East? One of my friends surprised me by paying a lot of money for a Samsung because he felt he needed 3D viewing. Turkey is behind Korea in electronic goods and car-making, even though when Turkey sent a brigade to liberate South Korea in the fifties, Turkey was thought to be the more industrialised and richer country of the two. That is sometimes brought up in Turkish politics to prove how incompetent some past governments have been.
The criticism of difficulties in Libya and Syria is not fair. Turkey's leaders were cosy with a number of dictators but not more so than say Sarkozy, who led the charge in Libya or Berlusconi who was eager to open his countries airfields for bombing riads in exchange for oil concessions. Gaddafi had pitched up his tent in both the French and the Italian capitals but not in Ankara. Turkey is highly regarded in many Balkan and Middle Eastern countries, and not just in the government circles either. I myself have a Bosnian and an Egyptian friend both of whom are very fond of Turkey. They found me, not the other way around. My Bosnian friend actually calls himself a Turk and follows Turkish news even though he hasn't visited Turkey yet. Unfortunately he can't speak Turkish so we correspond in... English!
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