The New Anatolian, Turkey
June 8 2005
Quo Vadis EU?
by Nursun Erel
-Ankara watches developments carefully. After PM Erdogan’s US visit,
the govt is preparing visits to several EU member capitals
-During these visits a message of ‘Don’t place new conditions in
front of us’ will be given to European leaders
-Greek Cypriots are working very hard to add a ‘Turkey paragraph’ to
the EU summit’s final declaration
The government is preparing consecutive visits to European capitals
to follow up on Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s U.S. visit. The
scheduled visits will start after the European Union summit in
Brussels on June 16-17. Erdogan, Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul, and
Turkey’s chief negotiator to the EU Ali Babacan will go to Britain,
Germany, and Austria. During these visits, Turkey will declare its
concerns about the “privileged partnership formula,” which has been
bandied about lately, especially by French and German political
circles, as an alternative to full EU membership. The prime minister
and his top officials will also deliver to European leaders the
message not to place new hurdles in front of Turkey before its
negotiations start.
Greek efforts at EU summit
It is expected that the Greek Cypriots will push hard for a “Turkey
paragraph” in the final declaration at the upcoming EU summit in
Brussels. The Greeks want Turkey to open their harbors and airports
to Greek shipping and commercial airplanes. Greek Cypriot leader
Tassos Papadopoulos is putting his best efforts forward to reach this
target by talking to top EU officials in Luxembourg.
The rejection of the EU constitution in referendums in France and the
Netherlands, the shelved referendum in Britain, and controversy over
the euro are being carefully watched in Ankara. Sources closely
following these developments spoke to The New Anatolian about these
issues.
“Right after these developments it’s true that question marks
appeared concerning the future of the EU,” said one source. “In fact,
there may be some additional changes such as a change in government
in Germany after elections. That’s why the privileged partnership
formula for Turkey has been brought to the table and discussed so
often. But we are keeping our focus on full membership and minding
our own business. We won’t even discuss that formula, we simply
continue to work for our goal. What about the pessimistic talk over
the euro? Well, these are like the summer winds, they’ll only be
around for a short while. Enormous efforts and money were spent to
develop the euro, so it’s almost ridiculous to suggest abandoning it.
So now we are awaiting the completion of the upcoming EU summit.
We’ll first see the declaration, and this will be an important
indicator on our way to negotiations.”
Consecutive EU visits
Recently, statements coming from EU capitals such as ones proposing a
“privileged partnership formula” or demanding that Turkey withdraw
its troops from Cyprus as soon as possible and admit to the Armenian
“genocide” have been worrying Ankara. Turkish officials are concerned
that such talk may be an attempt to slow down Turkey’s negotiation
process, and have organized visits to several EU capitals to state
their positions directly to their European colleagues.
During the visits, Prime Minister Erdogan, Foreign Minister Gul, and
chief negotiator Babacan are expected to tell their European
counterparts: “Don’t expect further sacrifices from Turkey. If not,
there could be negative implications for the EU, because Turkey has
done everything asked of it up to now. If the message coming from
French and Dutch voters is translated to mean that they reject
Turkey’s membership in Europe, this is a problem that needs to be
solved by their governments. They were responsible for fostering
their publics’ opinions. They provoked the situation.”