Post by Bozur on Oct 3, 2005 18:15:47 GMT -5
Editorial Observer
Driving the Scenic Route to European Union Membership
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: October 3, 2005
Traveling through Turkey last year with an international group of journalists, I heard a consistent message from government officials and human rights groups: keep the European Union talks going. What surprised me was that many said the process was more important than membership. The talks need to keep going or reforms will grind to a halt, the argument went, so let's worry about the details later. The message sounded Machiavellian. But I grasped its meaning a few months later as I sat at a Ukrainian border station in a beat-up Volkswagen Golf, trying to cross into Moldova.
"Present? Present?" the border guard asked, holding up my CD player. His comrades were inside our car, searching every nook and cranny. I smiled and told the guard I didn't understand. He smiled back, gave the player a whack with his billy club and permitted me to keep my broken Discman. Then we were inexplicably told we couldn't leave the country. In retrospect, I might as well have given it to him. It could have saved me 30 hours of desperate searching, through the night and into the following day, for a station where the border police would let us pass without stealing our car or demanding a bribe higher than we were willing to pay. The asking price at the next stop was $200, a lot more than I paid for the CD player.
The travel and foreign affairs writer Robert Kaplan writes that if you want to get to know a place you have to move on the ground. Fly into the capital and look around for a couple days before flying out again and you learn nothing. After logging several thousand miles in that trusty Golf in Eastern Europe last year, I'm inclined to agree. A stopover in Kiev and a visit to Warsaw wouldn't be so different. Both are scarred by war and Stalinism, beautiful in places and hideous in others. Truck stops at dusk in the boonies are another story. In Ukraine I feared each trip to a roadside bathroom might be my last.
Entering Ukraine was as challenging as leaving. After a four-hour wait in a line of cars that hadn't moved, my companion and I finally realized that we had to bribe drivers camped out ahead to get to the border station. There the agents tried to impound our car, or generously suggested that we sell it to a friend who materialized, in Mephistophelian fashion, seemingly out of nowhere.
I had both my worst and best times in places like Sevastopol and Odessa. But the open, daily corruption was difficult to take. A form of paranoia sets in when a shakedown for a bribe is an hourly occurrence on the highway. A gray uniform and a black-and-white traffic baton become the most frightening sight. I was glad to hear in July that President Viktor Yushchenko disbanded the traffic police force, but recent turmoil in the government tempers optimism about the country's future.
We cheered out loud, in an almost tearful swell of relief, as we re-entered civilization, crossing the border into Romania. Romania, another former Communist dictatorship is my idea of civilization? The answer is absolutely, because of that tiny little blue flag with yellow stars - the banner of the European Union - at the crossing point. Let me be clear: Romania is not yet a member, and still the contrast with a country like Ukraine was night and day. What had been an hourly ritual of bribes, doling out the three C's - cash, Coke and cigarettes - to machine pistol-wielding cops, abruptly ended.
We drove the length of Romania and the breadth of its European Union-accession comrade Bulgaria without once being solicited for a bribe. Romania and Bulgaria have their own problems, but it's doubtful that either would trade places with Ukraine, their Black Sea neighbor to the north. The difference throughout the drive was clear: countries on the E.U. invite list seemed more stable than those outside the velvet rope. Debate always centers on joining the union, but the greater improvement seems to come from the invitation. It's like a stamp of approval for nervous investors and political cover for reformers. "We don't want to allow Kurdish-language radio and television broadcasts, but the European Union is making us," Turkish officials can tell, and more importantly have told, hardliners.
Through its guest-worker program, Germany, the E.U.'s largest member, has bound its fortunes to Turkey's. But all of Europe needs a stable neighbor to the southeast. The alternative could be flare-ups with Greece and Cyprus, lost leverage over human rights concerns, most notably in Kurdish areas, and an even bigger mess in the vicinity of Iraq.
European Union members remained deadlocked over the weekend on holding membership talks with Turkey. A last-minute deal could get the process moving, but every step seems harder than the last. To understand what Turkey would look like without even a distant promise of membership, perhaps European officials could take a spin through Ukraine. My advice: bring Marlboros and money in small denominations. You don't get change from corrupt cops.
Driving the Scenic Route to European Union Membership
By NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: October 3, 2005
Traveling through Turkey last year with an international group of journalists, I heard a consistent message from government officials and human rights groups: keep the European Union talks going. What surprised me was that many said the process was more important than membership. The talks need to keep going or reforms will grind to a halt, the argument went, so let's worry about the details later. The message sounded Machiavellian. But I grasped its meaning a few months later as I sat at a Ukrainian border station in a beat-up Volkswagen Golf, trying to cross into Moldova.
"Present? Present?" the border guard asked, holding up my CD player. His comrades were inside our car, searching every nook and cranny. I smiled and told the guard I didn't understand. He smiled back, gave the player a whack with his billy club and permitted me to keep my broken Discman. Then we were inexplicably told we couldn't leave the country. In retrospect, I might as well have given it to him. It could have saved me 30 hours of desperate searching, through the night and into the following day, for a station where the border police would let us pass without stealing our car or demanding a bribe higher than we were willing to pay. The asking price at the next stop was $200, a lot more than I paid for the CD player.
The travel and foreign affairs writer Robert Kaplan writes that if you want to get to know a place you have to move on the ground. Fly into the capital and look around for a couple days before flying out again and you learn nothing. After logging several thousand miles in that trusty Golf in Eastern Europe last year, I'm inclined to agree. A stopover in Kiev and a visit to Warsaw wouldn't be so different. Both are scarred by war and Stalinism, beautiful in places and hideous in others. Truck stops at dusk in the boonies are another story. In Ukraine I feared each trip to a roadside bathroom might be my last.
Entering Ukraine was as challenging as leaving. After a four-hour wait in a line of cars that hadn't moved, my companion and I finally realized that we had to bribe drivers camped out ahead to get to the border station. There the agents tried to impound our car, or generously suggested that we sell it to a friend who materialized, in Mephistophelian fashion, seemingly out of nowhere.
I had both my worst and best times in places like Sevastopol and Odessa. But the open, daily corruption was difficult to take. A form of paranoia sets in when a shakedown for a bribe is an hourly occurrence on the highway. A gray uniform and a black-and-white traffic baton become the most frightening sight. I was glad to hear in July that President Viktor Yushchenko disbanded the traffic police force, but recent turmoil in the government tempers optimism about the country's future.
We cheered out loud, in an almost tearful swell of relief, as we re-entered civilization, crossing the border into Romania. Romania, another former Communist dictatorship is my idea of civilization? The answer is absolutely, because of that tiny little blue flag with yellow stars - the banner of the European Union - at the crossing point. Let me be clear: Romania is not yet a member, and still the contrast with a country like Ukraine was night and day. What had been an hourly ritual of bribes, doling out the three C's - cash, Coke and cigarettes - to machine pistol-wielding cops, abruptly ended.
We drove the length of Romania and the breadth of its European Union-accession comrade Bulgaria without once being solicited for a bribe. Romania and Bulgaria have their own problems, but it's doubtful that either would trade places with Ukraine, their Black Sea neighbor to the north. The difference throughout the drive was clear: countries on the E.U. invite list seemed more stable than those outside the velvet rope. Debate always centers on joining the union, but the greater improvement seems to come from the invitation. It's like a stamp of approval for nervous investors and political cover for reformers. "We don't want to allow Kurdish-language radio and television broadcasts, but the European Union is making us," Turkish officials can tell, and more importantly have told, hardliners.
Through its guest-worker program, Germany, the E.U.'s largest member, has bound its fortunes to Turkey's. But all of Europe needs a stable neighbor to the southeast. The alternative could be flare-ups with Greece and Cyprus, lost leverage over human rights concerns, most notably in Kurdish areas, and an even bigger mess in the vicinity of Iraq.
European Union members remained deadlocked over the weekend on holding membership talks with Turkey. A last-minute deal could get the process moving, but every step seems harder than the last. To understand what Turkey would look like without even a distant promise of membership, perhaps European officials could take a spin through Ukraine. My advice: bring Marlboros and money in small denominations. You don't get change from corrupt cops.