Turkey risks losing accession strategy

Date: 30/11/00

By Simon Taylor

TURKEY risks falling even further behind in its bid for EU membership if foreign ministers fail to agree a strategy for Ankara to prepare for membership next week.

Diplomats are warning that if its disagreements with Greece over the future of Cyprus are not resolved next week, Turkey could be the only applicant country which does not have a blueprint setting out the steps it must take to qualify to join the Union. "Turkey could be the only candidate without an accession strategy," said one. "It would be like a festering wound in our relationship but we could live with it."

The French presidency will try to broker at next Monday's (4 December) meeting of foreign ministers to prevent the issue from clouding the Nice summit later in the week. But diplomats say it looks increasingly unlikely that a solution which would satisfy Turkey and still win Greek support can be found in time.

Diplomats also fear that if the problem is not solved, Ankara could hinder the EU's efforts to cooperate with NATO in planning its rapid reaction force. Turkey, which is a member of the NATO alliance, has recently been more receptive to the Union's plans for an independent military crisis management force after initially blocking access to key planning documents.

Good relations with NATO will be essential to the success of the planned military force as the EU will rely on the alliance's hardware and expertise to launch operations. "The Turks have been helpful on defence recently but that could change if the accession strategy is not sorted out," said one.

Relations between the Union and Turkey suffered a setback earlier this month after the Commission presented a road map for accession, which called on Ankara to work to resolve its dispute with Athens over Cyprus. This provoked a protest from Turkish Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit, who accused EU leaders of betraying a pledge they made in Helsinki last December not to link progress on Cyprus with membership of the Union.

Paris' insistence that the issue should not come up at the Nice summit means that if foreign ministers fail to agree a strategy paper for Ankara next week, the issue is unlikely to be resolved this year.

This would be a major blow to Turkey's stated ambitions of starting negotiations on terms of entry to the EU next year. But diplomats believe that Ankara might be more prepared to accept not having a road map than agreeing to a document with which it violently disagreed. "Everybody knows what the Turks have to do and they could just get on with doing it without having an accession strategy," suggested one diplomat.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ismail Cem said this week that Ankara would continue to work towards Union membership even if it did not get a strategy before the Nice summit.

Turkey risks falling even further behind in its bid for EU membership if foreign ministers fail to agree a strategy for Ankara to prepare for membership.