Vision to go ahead with EU

Vision to go ahead with EU

Ankara- Turkish Daily News

The Turkish case with respect to the EU has
reached a very strategic and promising stage at which some very
significant accomplishments such as legal as well as nonlegal
measures should be recognized as the milestone events leading into
the more optimistic future for Turkey’s chances of accession to the
EU.

Turkish authorities should believe and convince
the EU authorities that she possesses the will power, capacity,
capability, responsibility and accountability to meet the
challenges posed aptly or inaptly in the pursuit of her accession
to the EU as an additional positive synergistic source (member).
Indeed, she deserves to build up a positively appealing image by
means of a hard work strategy implemented without any lethargy,
easygoing and foot dragging posture at all on the remaining issues
which are, in essence, relatively easier to handle compared with
the significant progress, having been made on much more complicated
situations.

The road map ahead is shorter, easier and more
optimistic to wait or go ahead than what has already been achieved.
This fact is alone sufficient evidence for all parties to believe
their physical, material, emotional will power dedicated to drive
the accession endeavors to the happy end successfully.

It is appropriate to see and face at this point
by recalling essentially what really lies ahead with easygoing,
open, candid and objective mind to motivate and strengthen
ourselves even more. Major documents and guidelines to consider in
this regard are the Maastricht criteria and Copenhagen political
criteria as follows:

a. Turkey must reduce her inflation to the mean
inflation of three EU member countries with the least (best)
inflation plus one-and-a-half points.

b. Turkey’s public debt ought to fall below
(under) 60 percent of Gross national product currently amounting to
about $100 billion.

c. Government budget deficit must be less than
or equal to 3 percent of Gross national product, implying about $5
billion currently.

d. Interest rate on public bonds with one year
maturity is expected to be less than or equal to the mean rate of
three EU member countries with the lowest interest rates plus 2
percent of that average.

e. Turkish currency should maintain its
stability for at least two years in a row. The preceding guidelines
are imposed as a part of the Maastricht Agreement. Furthermore, the
Copenhagen criteria comprise a: political criterion requiring that
Turkey does have an operational domestic system secured by stable,
functional, institutional structure, supremacy of law in order and
human rights. b: Economic criterion implies that Turkey sustains a
free market system operating sufficiently and that the market
should have the ability, strength and capacity to compete
relatively well within EU markets. c: Turkey must observe EU laws
and monetary objectives.

What is really and essentially required of
Turkey is not unique to herself. They are all expected from every
country seeking accession to the EU.

As the part of further development, progress,
advancement and civilization project with EU membership or without
it, Turkey should seriously consider the meeting preceding criteria
relentlessly with stamina and perseverance. Indeed, we can even be
more encouraged and motivated by studying the following table
demonstrating the difficulties, deviations and disturbances at
meetings of these standards by the current member countries in
1997:

In 1997, only one member country, Luxemburg,
seemed able to meet all of these criteria. Even Germany, the
leading-driving economic power, the strongest economy had
difficulty and deviations from the standards.

As a rule, the EU acts as an assessor of the
country seeking activel y the accession to it in terms of
condition, standards, timing, negotiation process, etc. Turkey
seems to hold rational for realizing these results by focusing on
convergence to EU in terms of solving all existing issues with the
EU and its member countries reasonably well.

All these problems are solvable and worth
solving for the best interest of both parties equally. Thus, the
parties should effectively deal with the critical issues for
driving the accession of Turkey to the EU by mobilizing all the
resources, all the skills, power, capability and capacity they have
with the great vision.

To read more about Turkey, please visit

Abhaber.