MEPs will back Turkey talks, but ‘pressure must be kept up’

By Martin Banks

Date: 09/12/04

MEPS are next week expected to back a report which calls for accession negotiations with Turkey to begin "without undue delay".

The report on the European Parliament's position on Turkish EU membership welcomes a number of "important reforms" implemented by Turkey in recent years.

But it lists all the conditions, including a "zero tolerance" approach to torture and human rights violations, that have to be met before membership talks can start.

It is the final version of a report prepared by Dutch centre-right MEP Camiel Eurlings, the Parliament's rapporteur on Turkey.

The first draft attracted almost 500 amendments and Eurlings says that the latest version represents a "good compromise". MEPs will vote on the report at the plenary session in Strasbourg next Tuesday (14 December) - two days before the Brussels summit, which is to decide when accession talks with Ankara can start. Parliament's recommendations in the report are generally in line with the EU summit's conclusions, drafted by the Dutch presidency.

These recommend starting membership talks but state that they could not be concluded until the EU has agreed its post-2014 budget.

Eurlings recommends the establishment of an independent inspection service in Turkey to investigate allegations of torture and calls on Ankara to pursue "energetically" its fight against corruption.

The report urges the Turkish authorities to "put an immediate end" to discrimination against religious minorities and says that the withdrawal of Turkish troops in northern Cyprus is a "necessary step forward" to finding a solution to the Cyprus problem.

The possibility of offering Turkey a "privileged partnership" rather than full EU membership - an idea supported by some European People's Party (EPP-ED) members - was rejected by the Parliament's foreign affairs committee, which last week adopted Eurlings' report by 50 votes to 18.

But this idea may be put to the vote again next week.

Eurlings was part of a delegation, which included the assembly's President Josep Borrell, who met Turkish premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara last week.

After the meeting, he told European Voice how astonished he was by Erdogan's description of some Turkish human rights NGOs as "terrorists".

"I found his comment depressing. It shows just how far Turkey still has to go," says Eurlings, estimating that it will take "at least a decade" before the country is ready to join the EU.

"I admit Turkey has scored some real achievements in becoming a more modern European state and it is important [that] we offer it clear incentives to continue the reform programme," he adds, "but a lot of work still has to be done, particularly in the field of human rights and religious freedoms.

"Parliament has got to keep up the pressure on Turkey to continue these reforms."

He believes there has to be "a fundamental change in Turkish public opinion towards tolerance of minority groups. It should be as easy to open a Christian church in Turkey as it is to open a Turkish mosque in Brussels".

Eurlings estimates that the report "strikes a good balance between the constructive and the critical, is positive but cautious". He believes that it will be approved by a large majority of MEPs.

EU government leaders are expected to announce next Friday (17 December) that accession negotiations with Turkey will be opened next year. The summit's draft conclusions stress that negotiations would not automatically lead to accession and are part of an "open-ended" process. Ankara is disputing this position.

Preview of a vote in the European Parliament on the report by Dutch centre-right MEP Camile Eurlings on the Parliament's position on Turkish EU membership.