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Europol to export their norms to third countries which could accuse
Europeans of double standards. In other words, when Europol insists on a
third country adopting EU’s data protection rules this country could invoke
the example of the Europol-U.S. agreement in order to undermine EU’s
arguments on data protection. This could affect, for instance, the relations
between Europol and Turkey which are analysed in the next section.
The membership conditionality and the Turkey-Europol agreement
Since the EU-Turkey relations were enhanced in 1987, when Turkey
applied for a full membership, the fight against terrorism has always been
a tense topic between the two parties due to Turkey’s hard-line
counterterrorism policies towards domestic terrorist organisations such as
the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The EU institutions, such as the
European Parliament, the European Council and the Commission, have
frequently urged Turkey to transfer into the country’s counter-terrorism
policies and implement in practice EU’s human rights-related norms and
legislation.
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In 1999, the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured and the PKK
declared a ceasefire and withdrew its militants to Northern Iraq and this
development brought also a change in the EU-Turkey relations on
counterterrorism matters. In the same year the EU also provided a strong
membership prospect to Turkey, which triggered a number of human
rights-related and EU-originating reforms in Turkey. In particular, during
these years, Turkey adopted nine harmonisation packages that
encompassed a number of reforms related to improving the human rights
conditions in Turkey’s counter-terrorism policy.
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Regarding the relations of Europol with Turkey, in 2000 the Council of the
EU authorised Europol to sign an agreement with Turkey and a strategic
agreement was signed between the Turkish National Police and Europol in
2004.
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In these four years Turkey has investigated the pros and cons of
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an agreement with Europol.
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The scope of this agreement was limited
and it included the exchange of technical expertise and strategic
information, training and internship programmes, the sharing of best
practices, and mutual consultation of the two parties. The sharing of
personal data was excluded from this agreement.
The negotiation and conclusion of an operational agreement that would
allow the exchange of personal data would depend on whether Turkey
would adopt EU’s data protection rules.
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Indeed, the EU authorities such
as EU’s counterterrorism coordinator have emphasized that the
incorporation of EU’s data protection rules into the domestic level of
Turkey is a central condition for the exchange of personal data between
Europol and Turkey.
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In particular, an important hurdle for Turkey’s
cooperation with Europol is that Turkey has not yet ratified the Council of
Europe’s “Convention of the for the Protection of Individuals with regard
to Automatic Processing of Personal Data” which was signed by Turkey in
1981. In order to enhance its counterterrorism cooperation with the
Europol, Turkey has amended its constitution in a way that the protection
of personal data is explicitly postulated. Furthermore, following this
amendment, in June 2012, a draft law on the protection of personal data
was also submitted to the parliament for consideration. Despite the above
developments, there was no great progress in the adoption of the EU data
protection norms by Turkey. According to senior officials from Turkish
national police, the adoption of rules for the protection of personal data
limits the capacity of the law enforcement agencies in Turkey to access
personal data while conducting counterterrorism investigations and this is
the main reason why the adoption process is slow.
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In the face of Turkey’s reluctant stance regarding data protection, the EU
and Europol have shown that they are not willing to compromise on data
protection issues. This stance is in contrast with the stance that EU and
Europol had towards the US demands and approach as seen previously.
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The explanation of this inconsistency lay in the level of interdependence
between Turkey and the EU and the fact that the EU is less dependent on
Turkey than the vice versa. This creates a power asymmetry between
Turkey and the EU and therefore the latter is less flexible and can more
easily impose its data protection rules to the former.
In particular, the first factor that has shaped the power asymmetry
between Turkey and the EU is Turkey’s candidate status; as mentioned
previously, the EU membership has been a strategic goal for Turkey in
terms of both the economic and the political benefits that the membership
entails. The “gatekeeper” role of the EU has increased Europeans’ power
and the EU can as a result set the adoption of data protection rules by
Turkey as a prerequisite for concluding a Europol-Turkey agreement. In
this sense, Turkey’s longstanding counterterrorism experience and its
enthusiasm for cooperating with the EU countries is not perceived as an
opportunity by the EU and the member states to improve their own
counterterrorism capacity. Turkey’s candidate status gives a negative
impression that the EU does not have much to learn from Turkey and
Turkey’s demands for closer cooperation were not enough to stimulate
and bring together EU’s political actors for a common compromise.
Therefore the EU does not take any initiative to mobilise member states
and EU institutions to take action in line with Turkey’s demands.
A second factor that has increased the power asymmetry between the EU
and Turkey is that the PKK has not been a major threat to EU countries, if
compared with to Al Qaeda network which was involved in the London and
Madrid bombings of 2004 and 2005 respectively. On the contrary, there is
even the risk for Europol and the EU that enhanced cooperation with
Turkey can mobilise the PKK networks against EU states; for example
when the PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999 there were
several violent protests in European countries.
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Additionally, the strong
links of the PKK networks and the Kurdish diaspora with members of the
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