Turkey bids to assuage EU critics

As Turkey’s foreign minister Ali Babacan returned home yesterday (28 May) from a two-day trip to Brussels, he could rest reassured of the EU’s commitment to the accession talks. But Turkey should not expect an easy ride, with the EU pressing for more and faster reforms.

Addressing the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said he wants to see “progression, not regression” in Turkey’s reform efforts to meet EU accession principles. 

He made clear that progress in accession negotiations depends on Turkey’s ability to carry out further reforms, indicating that seven negotiating chapters could be opened if Turkey met opening technical benchmarks. 

Negotiations on company law and intellectual property law are expected to be opened as early as next month, increasing the number of open chapters to eight out of 35, all of which have to be closed before a country can join. 

Speaking to the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, Babacan expressed his confidence that the energy and environment chapters could be opened during the upcoming French Presidency. 

France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner suggested on Monday (26 May) that France would oppose talks on five chapters directly relating to accession but would not raise objections to talks on other chapters. 

Displaying differences with his very Turkey-critical President Nicolas Sarkozy, Kouchner said “if it were up to me, I would want to see six chapters opened during the French Presidency”. 

However, French officials had worked hard to remove references to “accession” in an EU document prepared for Tuesday’s Association Council meeting with Turkey, which is the most important decision-making body on Turkish-EU relations. 

The wording eventually remained in the text, following other member states’ opposition to its removal and a warning from Ankara that it would boycott the meeting if the word is removed. 

French Europe Minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet told reporters that Paris had chosen to withdraw its demand, saying the upcoming EU Presidency required France to be “impartial, equitable and balanced”. 

Babacan said that the efforts of France to remove the word “accession” from EU documents would mean the “EU’s denial of its own signature,” calling on the bloc to stick to its commitments and not endanger its reliability. He warned that efforts to retreat on that promise would “wear down the enthusiasm to carry forward reforms”. 

“If we were to lose the target of EU membership, we would have trouble keeping the momentum for reform,” he said. 

Rehn in response urged the Turkish government to “focus on reforms instead of words”, saying Turkey alone was responsible for the slow pace of negotiations.  

Babacan replied that the EU also held responsibility, criticising that “while were are asked to give concrete dates for reforms, there has been no date hinted at for a deadline for Turkish accession to the EU”. 

The Dutch MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten, author of the latest progress report on Turkey presented last week, warned that “the EU once gave a date for accession to two countries, Bulgaria and Romania, and very much regretted doing so”. 

She suggested that “the EU would most likely not do so again”, adding that “you don’t need a date in order to affect to affect reforms”. 

In reference to the French position, Babacan pointed out that “privileged partnerships, or other forms of association are not acceptable to us” and full membership had to remain the goal of the talks. 

After receiving reassurances from France that it would not block progress on the talks under its Presidency, he expressed his hope that it would have the same “constructive approach” as the current Slovenian Presidency. 

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