Does Turkey, the star of the emerging countries, a source of inspiration for the Arab revolutions of 2011 and capable of returning the army to its barracks which was ready to get involved in politics , doing a reverse? The European Union, which reopened in late 2013 the chapters of negotiations on accession after a freeze of more than three years, doubts the ability of this country to stay the course of reforms. The dream of Turkey to move from 17th in the world for the size of its economy to the 10th 2023, seems less and less possible. "This has been achieved over the past decade, whether over the army, the judiciary reform, the integration of nearly 15 million rural people in the urban middle class, is impressive," said a European official. Not to mention, as it is claimed to be in the World Bank, the creation of 4 million jobs from 2009 to 2013 , while the European Union destroyed 3,000,000. But in recent months, the European official added, reforms skid . The visit of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Brussels on January 21, the first since the last three years, aimed to give a boost to the process of negotiations but in vain.
Without mentioning a suspension of negotiations , Brussels thinks, adds one European sources in Ankara, that Turkey is moving away from the "Copenhagen criteria" that require candidate countries "to have stable institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law , human rights and respect for and protection of the minorities." Since December 17, the Erdogan government was shaken by a corruption scandal that directly affects his family, including his son, the ministers and the businessmen close to the AKP , the Islamist party power since 2002 . Erdogan has overreacted , alleging a conspiracy after the arrest of of the sons a several ministers or the summon of his own son to the court. It is an attitude, according to a senior Turkish official, which gives the impression that Erdogan is "fighting for his political survival." Several hundred officers were relieved of their duties, and after that, judges and prosecutors. The culprit of this plot for Erdogan is none other than his former ally, an imam Fethullah Gülen, exiled in the United States since 1999.
In an interview with European reporters in Ankara, Ali Babacan, Deputy Prime Minister said that already for many years the government "suspected" the Gülen movement to have placed relatives in the upper administration. According to him, the movement manages about a quarter of maternal in Turkey and also schools in 130 countries and includes more than 30,000 businessmen. Faced with this alleged conspiracy, the government adopted, in quick succession, a new justice reform to increase its influence even on the judges and a law limiting access to the Internet ostensibly to protect the privacy of citizens and children.
This conspiracy theory is not new in Turkey. But the scandal that rocks AKP is more serious than Erdogan's party which proclaims itself as the party of purity, anti-corruption , anti -establishment and it comes just months after the demonstrations against the power triggered late May by a project ultimately abandoned, to build a shopping center on Gezi Park in Istanbul. "The political turmoil affect the economic status." The note "The political environment is less predictable. Which could weigh on economic resilience and growth potential in the long term, " was given by the S & P placing in early February the Turkish rating (BB +) with a" negative "outlook. For Turkey, despite a higher growth rate than the European countries - about 3.5% provided by the World Bank in 2014 - has serious weaknesses. "Turkey now pays for his sins of the past five years." It must be funded by the use of short-term capital deficit on current account, which reached nearly 8% of its GDP, worse than the Ukraine and South Africa situation. This deficit is expected to shrink this year, due to the depreciation of the Turkish lira and a reduction in imports, particularly of gold from Iran or a recovery in the euro area, as explained by the Minister of Finance Mehmet Simsek.
But is it enough ? Because Turkey suffers from a low level , both foreign direct investment (FDI) and private savings and a debt of households and businesses. The risk lays in the possibility that capital flight in the short term accelerates. The Minister of Finance, a former economist at Merrill Lynch, recognizes that, since the U.S. monetary tightening , the period of excess liquidity and low interest rates "comes to an end ." The violent rise in the interest rate decided by the central bank, against the advice of the Erdogan government, has certainly halted the sharp drop in the lira. But for how long? Turkey is not "sick man of Europe", as the Ottoman Empire in the nineteenth century, but it is "the most vulnerable of the emerging countries." And this despite the considerable strengths of its youthful population. Erdogan who sees itself as the next president in the first presidential elections in August by direct suffrage, could be written in the annals of the history as a reformer, but he may also end up as a corrupt autocrat. As we approach the municipal elections of March 30, he still enjoys, according to surveys, an approval rate of nearly 40%. Why stop the reforms?
No comments:
Post a Comment