Debates On the Effects of Globalization and the EU

pose[d] dangers in terms of the concessions given”⁵⁴³. Accordingly, national customs legislation and regulation had to accord with that of the EU to where Turkey had not been admitted, thus did not have a say in its decision making bodies. His skepticism about Turkey’s prospective membership was particularly visible in his negative utterance on the Union, that supposedly “the European Union is more than satisfied with the advantages taken from Turkey via the customs union”⁵⁴⁴.

Corresponding views in the Greek Parliament were on the EU’s obliviousness to Greece’s national defence and deterrent posture towards Turkey that allegedly Greece did not reap any political benefits of this membership. Particularly it was cleared in MP Evrimidis’s complaints below⁵⁴⁵:

[GR] “Three times we had the Presidency of the European Union and we did not take advantage of our country’s gain. When we signed the GATT in September 1994, we did nothing to protect Greek agricultural products. When we have relinquished the right of veto for Turkey's accession to the European Union, we have not achieved anything for us”.

Therefore, it was suggested by MP Intzes that in the forthcoming Intergovernmental Conference, the government’s first task had to be not waiving “the right of veto on any issue that concern[ed] [Greece’s] sovereign rights and statehood”⁵⁴⁶. Greece’s veto power considered as political leverage in retaliation for bilateral disputes. In other words, Turkey had to retreat from her political stance towards Greece if she had a desire to achieve anything within the EU, as pointed out by the Foreign Minister Pangalos while explaining the general principles of the country’s foreign policy⁵⁴⁷:

[GR] “I would like to say that there is also a confusion about the customs union for lifting the veto. I don’t know, ladies and gentlemen, whether or not we were to remove the veto from the customs union then. I have the courage of my convictions, as you know, and I then criticized the lifting of the veto. However, I would like to say that this debate is not only of academic interest, because, as you know, the fact of Imia and what followed are a direct violation of the spirit and of the terms of the customs union, we returned [back to our previous position]; and [we can]

sa[y] that the basis for not implementing the financial assistance to Turkey is now established due to her new behaviour and not to previous arguments we had then overlooked, namely the human rights situation and her conduct in Cypr[us]. […] Consequently, Turkey will not receive any funding from the customs union agreement, and believe me she will [also] have great difficulty in getting funding which is the part of a more general policy regarding the Mediterranean that the Community seeks to exercise. Ladies and gentlemen, these are the general principles of our foreign policy”.

543 Minutes of Grand National Assembly of Turkey, (10.03.1996): 141. [Muhsin Yazıcıoğlu, BBP, the then MP].

544 ibid. [Yazıcıoğlu, BBP, the then MP].

545 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.10.1996): 97. [Konstantinos Evmiridis, ND, the then MP].

546 ibid, 74. [Intzes, DIKKI, the then MP].

547 ibid, 112. [Pangalos, PASOK, the then FM].

The rule of unanimity voting provided Greece more room for engaging in political maneuvers that determined Turkey-EU relations. Foreign Minister Pangalos’s statement revealed the permanence of Greek veto policy, but also the controversy raised in the Greek Parliament during the bargaining process that took place between Greece and the other EU members with regard to Cyprus’s admission to the Union⁵⁴⁸, that in the end, Greece lifted her veto over Turkey-EU customs union in return for the acceptance of Cyprus’s membership application.

There was general consensus in the Greek parliament that Greece had to preserve her veto policy over the improvements in respect of Turkey-EU relations. Additionally, the majority was convinced that Greece might have to exercise military power to restrain her potential threat in that veto power would be inadequate to confront repeated violations that were carried out relentlessly by Turkey. In this sense, the importance of Single Defence Space doctrine emphasized by the Minister for National Defence. It was a joint defence act of Greece as a deterrent and stabilizing factor in the region covering Thrace, the Aegean islands, and Cyprus. As mentioned below by MP Papathemelis military-based measures which aimed at upgrading and reinforcing the military potential of the country in tandem with Cyprus’s and forming a united defense zone vis-à-vis the common enemy –Turkey– were unquestionably needed but they had to be buttressed with political ones by the Greek authorities, especially for achieving Cyprus’s EU membership smoothly in the near term⁵⁴⁹:

[GR] “The need to overcome this enemy, aptly emphasized by the Prime Minister, means primarily shielding the Thrace-Aegean-Cyprus arc, the realization of the doctrine of a single defence space, the promotion of the pillars of strategy for the Cyprus problem, which is the accession of Cyprus to the European Union without reserves, and, of course, the doctrine of the unified defence area between Greece and Cyprus. This imposes strong, powerful Armed Forces.

And, of course, it imposes a modernization of armaments, which isn’t our choice Mr. President of the Coalition, it’s our need. It’s our imperative need when the enemy has already launched a 150 billion dollars’ mammoth program, namely 37.5 trillion drachmas, without hesitation we have to proceed with the modernization of our weapons systems and [with] the re-establishment of our already afflicted aeronautical supremacy in the Aegean. An aeronautical supremacy, which has been overturned since 1988”.

MP Papathemelis put greater stress on the modernization of armaments and military equipment that he believed was an imperative need, not an option. Accordingly, it would not be possible to protect and defend the country against possible attacks from the enemy while the enemy was persisting in arming itself by initiating expensive military ventures. And another point highlighted in the excerpt was that Greece had to

548 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (10.10.1996): 24. [Simitis, PASOK, the then PM].

549 Minutes of the Hellenic Parliament, (12.10.1996): 96. [Papathemelis, PASOK, the then MP].

struggle for also regaining its lost aeronautical supremacy over the Aegean following Davos of 1988.

In the Turkish Parliament, however, Turkey was portrayed as a peaceful country that sought peace at home and peace in the world. MP Ateş expressed the necessity of providing better border security and stated that Turkey was arming itself and making a costly military investment, which amounted to one-third of the country’s total budget, not for outside-others but because of her inside-other, namely the Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK⁵⁵⁰:

[TR] “Turkey must not entrust border security to the goodwill of her neighbours. Turkey, which conveys [the Atatürk’s maxim] peace in the country, peace in the world up to a universal discourse and activity, has to demonstrate her commitment effectively also on her border protection as she resolutely does in peacekeeping. Turkey has to give the necessary fight resolutely, on every international platform, against the countries that misuse her good-neighbourly relations. Turkey, which cannot get adequate precautions and measures in her borders, is allocating a figure close to one-third of her budget each year for the weapons, bullets, bombs [of] the south-eastern, however, unfortunately, cannot stop the bloodshed”.

In other words, Greece was increasing her military expenditures in response to that of Turkey’s, but Turkey kept arming herself primarily to uphold her national sovereignty and territorial integrity against PKK and secondarily to beef up her borders against outside-others who tended to supply guns, ammunition, and explosives to the PKK.