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“Europe needs Turkey and its enthusiasm”

A Europe that wants to have a stronger say on international politics needs Turkey and its enthusiasm, said Cavaco Silva, President of Portugal. Speaking to Today’s Zaman on the eve of his two day official visit to Turkey Cavaco Silva said that his country wants all the obstacles in front of opening of the new chapters in Turkey’s accession negotiation be removed and that no chapter is left frozen. Cavaco Silva said that the European Union will have a stronger say in peace, security and stability if it has Turkey as a member and Turkey will be able to have an influence in international politics it wouldn’t otherwise have. “Even a small member country has a chance to project its own image in world politics through the EU,” Cavaco Silva said. Recalling the hard times his country had during its seven years of negotiations for EU membership, the Portuguese President said that both the Turkish authorities and the Turkish public should be aware of the difficulties and that a final decision will require a compromise of 27 member states, each with a specific interest. As the last active politician from among the personalities who signed the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 that created the European Monetary Union and the Euro as a common currency, President Cavaco Silva told Today’s Zaman that without the Euro the current financial crisis would have hit many countries harder than it did. “I hope that one day the Turkish people will also decide that instead of the Turkish Lira they should live with the Euro,” Cavaco Silva said.

The President of Portugal is coming to Turkey today for a two day official visit. He will hold meetings with President Abdullah Gül, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoðan and with the heads of the opposition parties. President Cavaco Silva will address the Turkish Grand National Assembly. He will be the first foreign president to address the Assembly after American President Barack Obama. Cavaco Silva will be accompanied by a group of Portuguese entrepreneurs who will be holding discussions with their Turkish counterparts mainly concerning mainly a joint penetration into Latin American, African, Caucasian and Central Asian markets. Cavaco Silva will be opening a Portuguese paintings exhibition in Istanbul and will host President Gül in an official dinner that will follow a Fado concert. The concert will feature Portuguese star Katia Guerreiro.

Today’s Zaman spoke to President Cavaco Silva who was a former university professor on fiscal policies and the prime minister of his country for ten years after 1985, about the current financial crisis, the harshening diplomatic relations between Russia and NATO, the vision of Portugal for the Portuguese Speaking Countries and of course about fado and codfish. It was impossible to print the full interview here. We decided to publish the whole of it on our Internet site todayszaman.com for those who may be interested.

Are you hopeful of Turkey’s membership to the EU?

The position of Portugal has been very consistent as to the accession of Turkey. If we want to have a stronger Europe in the international arena, with a stronger say on peace, security and stability then Europe needs Turkey. We want that all the obstacles facing the opening of new chapters to be removed. We do not want any frozen chapters. But of course this requires goodwill from both sides.

Negotiations of accession are always difficult and the Turkish authorities and the public opinion should be aware of that. This is a compromise of 27 member states, each one with a specific interest. I hope that the government in Turkey will continue the structural reforms.

I think that up until Turkey has no great reasons to complain, having in mind that many other negotiations were also extremely difficult. For instance Portugal had to wait for the negotiations of Spain to be finalized.

You are going to give a lecture in Turkey’s Bosphorus University about Portugal’s accession process to the European Union and the lessons Turkey can learn from that it. What are the main issues you will underline?

Perhaps the word “lesson” is not the appropriate one here. Sharing of experience would be better. Portugal’s membership came during my prime ministry. I became prime minister at the beginning of November 1985 and the accession of Portugal was on 1 January 1986. I was prime minister of Portugal during the first ten years of Portugal’s membership to the EU. Those were challenging and enthusiastic times.

I believe Portugal benefited a lot from membership, but the EU also had its benefits, because of our special relation with Africa, with Latin America and our special relations with countries and people in the Far East. We equally have to mention Portugal’s very special relation with Brazil. This is the largest Portuguese speaking country in the world and nowadays is an emerging economic and political power. In some ways it is like Turkey. Both are members of the G-20.

You didn’t mention Turkey as a country with a special relationship with Portugal…

In fact we are in the western extreme of Europe and Turkey is in the eastern extreme. But we are both members of NATO; we are both members of the Council of Europe and Portugal expects that in a not too distant future we will be partners in the EU as well. I think there is real friendship between the Portuguese and Turkish peoples.

Do you know what the source of this friendship is?

I think Portugal, like Turkey, is a meeting point of different cultures, different civilizations and different religions. Portugal is, like Turkey, a bridge between cultures and civilizations. We are a bridge to the Atlantic, to South America, to North America. Turkey is a bridge to Asia and to the Africa. It is located in a very strategic situation. In fact we are not so different from one another. I felt that for the first time when I visited Turkey as a tourist. Walking around in the streets of Istanbul, going to the Grand Bazaar, looking at the faces of the people… I was born in the south of Portugal. The Muslims were on the other side of the strait. But I have to underline that although our political relations are excellent, in some other areas such as the economy and culture our cooperation and dialogue is far below what it could be.

Does this have an explanation?

There is one. In our twenty five years of membership to the EU, the Portuguese entrepreneurs concentrated their economic activities in that area. It was a very large internal market and the potentials opened to the Portuguese entrepreneurs were vast. But now, our entrepreneurs are looking beyond these, let’s say, traditional markets. This is one of the reasons why an important commercial deputation will come with me to Turkey. This is a group of approximately forty entrepreneurs. I will take part in an economic seminar, where Turkish and Portuguese entrepreneurs will join together and I know that many other contacts are being prepared.

We are not thinking only about the domestic Turkish market, but also about some other markets. I think that entrepreneurs from both countries should consider Latin America. We have advantages there. We know the market and the people of Latin America. As for Africa, I know that the Turkish authorities intend to open new embassies in Africa. We have excellent relations with our former colonies in Africa. Angola is an emerging economic power in Africa. The same is true for Mozambique. The Portuguese entrepreneurs could learn from their Turkish counterparts how to do business in the Caucasus and in the Central Asian region where Turkey is very knowledgeable. It is my belief that these contacts between entrepreneurs from both countries could be a very important first step in increasing trade relations.

I would also like to mention tourism. Portugal and Turkey are both tourist countries. Many Portuguese go Turkey and they bring marvelous souvenirs. Today we have very important world wide tour operators. They are in dozens of countries now. I am not so sure if they are already in Turkey or not, but they may be interested in setting up there. We are now being very innovative in creating new tourist products. We are a country with only ten million inhabitants, but we receive 14 million tourists every year. This is an important area of cooperation.

There are things we can do on foreign direct investment. One of the largest foreign investments in Turkey in a non-financial sector is a Portuguese company. That company invested not far from one billion US dollars in Turkey. There are other areas in which we developed very rapidly in recent years. One area that can be further developed is that of alternative energies.

Portugal is one of the countries that are investing greatly in renewable energy, mainly in wind energy. We have very good partnerships with German companies and we are now producing those huge towers and the generators in Portugal. Apart from the renewable energy we can cooperate on software applications, pharmaceutical industry and electronics and most importantly in infrastructure.

During the accession process Portugal benefited from the structural funds. We built motorways to the extent that I at times say that we have too many motorways. Thanks to that accession process we have developed infrastructure companies that now operate in Poland, in Hungary and in Africa. A Portuguese company is building the underground in Tel Aviv. They are all over the world. This is another area of cooperation.

You spoke only about economics, but you have mentioned cultural cooperation also.

Yes indeed. There is already cooperation between a Portuguese institute and Ankara University. I hope that it will be possible to reinforce that cooperation. I am hoping that we can create a joint committee of Portuguese and Turkish authorities to discuss what more can be done in the cultural area. It is already possible to learn the Portuguese language in Ankara University, but we also have to think of Istanbul.

Music is another cultural area we can work on. I will bring with me one of our most famous Fado singers. This is our traditional music and Katia Guerreiro was a feature of my electoral campaign. She represented me in contacts with young people. I know her very well and I am sure that the Turkish people will love her voice.

I am also bringing an exhibition of Portuguese paintings to Istanbul. These are paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries. The name of the exhibition will be “Lisbon: Memories of another city”. There was an exhibition of Turkish paintings here in 2007. We thought that it would be a good thing to show the similarities between the landscapes of Istanbul and those of Lisbon. It has been organized in such a way to show that although we are so distant in geographical terms, we are in fact very close to each other in many other aspects, including the views of our major cities.

I have noticed that Portugal is famous for tile making. I always thought this was a uniquely Turkish art.

Yes, we do have a museum of beautiful Lisbon tiles. It could actually be an Ottoman influence. But I believe that the sea was a greater influence. We have only one neighbor, Spain and a large open sea facing us. Our frontiers with Spain haven’t change for the last seven hundred years. So we had to look out towards the sea. That is why our famous navigators discovered the sea route to India and reached as far as Japan. There is a famous island in Japan, called Nagashima. The Portuguese introduced guns into Japan and changed the way how wars were fought between factions in that country. There is a festival in that island, solely celebrating the introduction of guns by the Portuguese in Japan. The influence of the sea is not just that of the Atlantic Ocean but also that of the Mediterranean. The Atlantic waters are not as warm as are the Turkish but it is very quiet and pleasant here.

The sea is the source of Fado also. I know Fado as a sad, melancholic music. But the people of Portugal are smiling. You have one of the most beautiful smiles among the European leaders. Isn’t that strange?

Fado is a bit melancholic. But we have two kinds of Fado; Fado of Lisbon and Fado of Coimbra. Coimbra Fado is linked to the University. Love is the reasons students sing Fado. It is a very different form of Fado. In Lisbon, as you said, it is more melancholic. It is sad. In the past it was the music of the taverns where people would drink wine and this sad music was encouraging to drink more. But today it is sung by young, beautiful faces.

As for the strangeness… In our culture there are other strange things. We are a happy nation with a sad song, but there are still others. For instance our traditional fish: codfish. It is impossible to find codfish in our coast. You have to go to Norway, Canada, and Iceland and similar countries to find codfish. All our codfish is imported and it is salted. In previous times our ships sailed to those cold waters to fish for cod and since the fishing season and sailing across took a long time the fish had to be salted and, on arrival, hung on clothes lines to dry in the sun. It is said that we have 1001 ways to cook codfish.

There is a link between Fado’s melancholy and fishermen travelling to fish for cod. That melancholy in the Fado is related to that feeling of departure: departure to India, departure to Madeira, and later on the departing emigrants. It is a sense of somebody we love very much leaving and not being certaine if they are going to come back. We call this feeling “saudade”, and it can almost be translated as “nostalgia”.

You yourself had this experience. You went to Mozambique at an early age to serve in the army.

I went to Mozambique and I went to Great Britain as well. I went to the Great Britain as a PhD student and to work as a professor in a university for some time. I went to Mozambique to serve in the army. I left Lisbon in a ship only ten days after I was married. Firstly they didn’t want to allow to take my wife, but in the end I convinced them. She came with me in the same ship and spent two years there.

That is one reason why I have a very special relation with Mozambique. But even before going there I had very good friends from Mozambique in the university. They went back and became ministers and important people in their country. Last year I decided to take all my family to Mozambique; my children and their children. I wanted to show them where I spent my honeymoon.

Maybe this is a good point to speak about Portuguese Speaking Countries and Portugal’s role in mustering those countries in world politics. What is your personal vision of this community?

Eight countries in all continents of the world and 250 million Portuguese speaking people… Portugal has now the presidency of that community. Next year it will be Angola. We are working together, the eight member states, to reinforce that community at the international level. We want to Portuguese to become an official language in the UN.

But beyond these we as Portugal want to continue to play an important role in the EU. EU is a priority in our foreign policy. The role of Portugal in the EU was very clear during the Portuguese presidency in the second semester of 2007. We managed to organize an EU-Africa Summit. This is not being unrealistically proud. No other country would have been able to bring all the African countries and all the 27 EU member states together. This summit was the first time we agreed on a joint strategy.

It was also during that Portuguese presidency that the partnership between EU and Brazil was established. Portugal also managed to bring together EU and MERCOSUR, the Latin American regional integration organization.

We have to talk about the Lisbon Strategy and the Lisbon Treaty also. Although we are a small country, Lisbon is already a topical word in the European dictionary. The Lisbon Strategy was designed to improve European competitiveness. By now 26 countries have approved the Lisbon Treaty. I hope that the Lisbon Treaty maybe implemented by the end of this year. It is very important for the functioning of the EU with 27 members. It will increase the efficiency of the institutions. It will increase transparency and make the EU a more important global player. Most importantly it will create conditions for further enlargement of the Union, including the membership of Turkey.

All of your bios refer to a concept called “dynamic stability”. This is a concept used in natural sciences. What does this refer to in politics?

Stability is not a goal in itself. We want stability to achieve some objectives that are linked to the wellbeing of the people. So when I say dynamic, I mean that we don’t want to leave things as they are. But we have to avoid difficulties also; we have to delay what is difficult, although it may be necessary. I am in favor of political stability because I am convinced that it is important to be dynamic in the action. And when the world is changing so rapidly, politicians should be ready to make changes also. Otherwise others will come and we shall regret in the future not having been wise and courageous enough to do what should have been done.

As a former professor of fiscal economics do you think that the world is doing enough to cope with this financial crisis? Many think that the USA is trying save the banks and not the people.

In the past there were many other crises. In Japan, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia, Argentina and Thailand. Why does this one differ from the previous crises? Because the centre of the crisis is the greatest economy of the world: the United States.

Terrible mistakes were made in the evaluation of the risk behavior of the banks. Ethic values and norms were infringed by banking agents who in the end received their bonus. A bonus is supposed to be granted for good management, but this time they were granted for failure.

What should be done? I believe the first step is to stabilize the financial markets. It is impossible to continue economic growth without a financial system. I think the decisions taken in London, in the G-20 meeting, were in the right direction. Turkey was there too, as you know.

G-20 was important in the sense that it was recognition that this is a crisis that cannot be solved by a dialogue between the US and just some European countries. Emerging economies play a crucial role in the solution for this crisis. And this is going to influence the future geo-strategy of the world. It was clear in this crisis that US could not bring back the economic stability unilaterally. And Obama recognized that when he came and said “I am here to learn from you.” So cooperation now is the key word. A global crisis can be solved by global cooperation among many countries of the world. China plays a role, because it is a huge creditor of the US. It is said that it has more than one trillion US dollars in bonds. But I think that 2010 will still be a difficult year.

Should we restart reading Marx’s Das Kapital?

Market economy model is the only one that can reconcile freedom and respect for human rights with economic and social progress. There may be rhetoric nowadays about the end of capitalism, but in the end you will see that market economy survives. For intellectual delight we may wish to read the Marx’s Das Kapital again. I read it when I was a student. It is enough for me.

Is NATO having a particularly difficult time with Russia? Is Russia coming back and are we going back to the Cold War era?

No, I don’t believe that. Russia is a strategic partner of the EU and also of NATO. Dialogue must be maintained. This does not mean that NATO and EU should not have condemned what happened in Georgia. But NATO and EU should not ignore Russia and the contribution Russia gives to peace and stability.

The increase of the prices of oil and gas may have given some Russian leaders a feeling for the Oil Power and Gas Power. But the prices are not as high as they were a few years ago. Russia needs EU in terms of political and economic dialogue and we may say the same for the EU.

You are the only political leader in Europe who signed the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 and who is still in political office. Looking back in time how do you evaluate the European Monetary Union established with that treaty?

I consider the Euro very much a success. Just think what would be the case in foreign exchange market without the Euro today. Look at Iceland’s situation. Imagine what would be Ireland’s without the Euro. I think the European Central Bank has generally done a good job. As an economist I think that they have conducted the European monetary policy even better than the FED did in the US.

We started with 11 countries and now we are 16 and many others would like the join us in the future. Of course there are convergence criteria. It was not easy for Portugal to comply with these criteria. But fortunately we were one of the founding members of the European Monetary Union. During the negotiations Margaret Thatcher was sitting next to me and she was saying “Why should I ever be here?rdquo; You see even a big country was unable to take that important, let us say, political step forward in the integration process. Currency, flag and football teams are symbols of sovereignty. For many countries like Germany, for instance, to accept to giving up the Deutsche Mark was not easy. We should praise Chancellor Kohl for that. Without Chancellor Kohl it would be impossible to create the EMU.

I hope that one day the Turkish people will decide also that instead of the Turkish Lira they should live with the Euro. For countries like Portugal, the removal of transaction costs, removal of uncertainties and the possibility of borrowing and repaying in your own currency is very important. Today Portuguese banks can go to Germany and borrow in Euro and repay in Euros. That was the problem with Iceland. They experienced problems when having to make repayments in Euros.

If we look to the fifty years of the European integration, although there were small problems now and then, we can say that it was a great case of success. Fifty years of peace, prosperity and with Europe having a much stronger voice in the international arena. If you become a member of the Union you will have an influence that on your own would be extremely difficult in international politics. Even a small member country has a chance to project its own image in world politics through the EU. But the choice is that of the Turkish people.