Unlocking a Christian Club

Firmly anchoring Turkey to a democratic Europe that is not a club of Christian nations is a historical imperative. So it was an important moment last week when Turkey’s bid to join the European Union moved forward with the European Commission’s recommendation that talks be launched on the terms of that nation’s ascension.

It’s now up to the 25 EU nations to sign off in December on such talks, and things may yet get sticky. This has always been a wary courtship, and its expectations will have to be deftly managed on all sides. The transparency that Europeans increasingly demand from EU institutions, and the democratization that the EU demands of Turkey, will only make the negotiations more difficult.

Public opinion in Europe has not embraced the idea of Turkish membership, and a referendum in any one of the member nations could scuttle the project. The challenge for political leaders across the EU is to sell the merits of Turkish membership and resist seizing on the issue to stir up anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant sentiment for short-term political gain.

In Turkey too the politics will be tricky. The strengthening of democracy there has brought to the fore political parties that question modern Turkey’s rigorous secularism. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will be walking a fine line in meeting conditions imposed by the EU while placating his own Islamist-rooted Justice and Development Party, whose members are not all enthralled with the idea of becoming culturally European. Recent aborted efforts by Turkey’s parliament to criminalize adultery, over European objections, served as a foreshadowing of potential tensions.

Europe should enter the talks in good faith. Though poorer than the European mean, Turkey offers European companies an immense and growing market, and the need of aging European societies for immigrant Turkish laborers will only become more acute. The grander strategic reasons for folding the old Byzantium into Europe are compelling -- pushing a multicultural Europe’s borders to Syria, Iraq and Iran, following in NATO’s footsteps.

It is no secret why the Bush administration has been lobbying on behalf of Turkey’s bid. A prosperous, democratic Turkey tied to the West would be a model for the Islamic world, and a statement that Muslim and Christian civilizations are not in conflict.