While every informed person knows that an ongoing economic crisis in Europe will hit Turkish exports and foreign direct investment, it is still popular among many Turkish observers and columnists to rejoice over the problems in Europe. It is depressing to see how happy some are that the EU is in bad shape. It was alarming to find out that even clever people like President Gül could not escape from this tendency to kick the EU in the back when it is already lying flat on the ground. President Gül referred to the EU as a “miserable” union. I guess all these comments reflect both frustration about the stalled EU accession negotiations and the sense that Turkey is finally in a position to take some kind of revenge after having been exposed to so much European arrogance in the past.

At the same time, it is also encouraging to read the reactions by other commentators who realize very well that it would be foolish for Turkey to give up on the EU just because Europeans are facing difficulties and Turkey is doing fine at the moment. I agree that the EU bashing is short-sighted and remind my readers that for economic and democratic reasons Turkey would be well-advised to keep its eyes on the prize. It is in Turkey’s long-term interests that the EU overcomes its problems quickly. Only with an economically strong Europe that is willing to open up to new members and invest in its immediate neighborhood will Turkey be able to continue reforming itself and become a first league economic player and a first class democracy.

It is good to see that amidst all these arguments about the future of the EU, Europe will still be capable of standing out as an example for the rest of the world, if it manages to get its act together. Fortunately, that happened last weekend in Durban at the UN climate conference. After long and heated debates, it was agreed that, as a successor to the Kyoto Treaty, a new legal framework must be written by 2015 and come into force by 2020. All three big polluters (China, India and the US) signed on to the treaty to develop legally binding plans to cut their green house gas emissions. It is true that many specialists fear that waiting till 2020 to start implementing these regulations might mean that their overall goal — limiting global warming to 2 degrees Celsius — cannot reached. But the fact that the big polluters were willing to engage themselves for the first time was a large step forward. Until now, China and India have refused to curb emissions because they wanted the rich countries to act first. The US used the Asian refusal as an excuse to avoid any legally binding agreement. That is going to change if and when every country sticks to the commitments they made in Durban.

The EU that set the agenda last weekend and the European commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, proved to be a tough and tenacious negotiator. She made an alliance with the small island states that are facing the biggest threat of rising sea levels and the least developed countries. This alliance will put maximum pressure on the three reluctant big boys. I hope this example of global leadership has not escaped the attention of EU skeptics in Turkey.

As Hedegaard explained afterwards, the EU will not be sitting back and waiting for the new big deal. Europe will have to improve on its present reduction ambitions and increase its own targets. Hedegaard also emphasized that international agreements are not the only answer to climate change: “What defines our climate policies as strong and effective or weak and inadequate is what nations, regions, municipalities, companies and individual citizens do. Combating climate change concerns us all.”

Let’s hope this message comes to Turkey as well.

JOOST LAGENDIJK /Todayzaman.com