Xinhua General News Service
August 23, 2005 Tuesday 2:30 PM EST

Danish Foreign Minister says EU could expand further

STOCKHOLM

The Danish Minister of Foreign Affairs Per Stig Moeller suggested
that the EU could come to include Turkey or countries further east,
Ritzau news bureau reported on Tuesday.

“From the Pyrenees in the west to the Caucasus in the east, that
could be the extent of the EU one day,” Moeller said, adding a union
that includes countries such as Armenia and Georgia is not
unthinkable.

Discussing whether Turkey is still a candidate for membership is thus
irrelevant, according to Moeller.

“It was already decided in 1999 that Turkey is a candidate, but it
can only join if it has the economic basis for it. We don’t know that
yet, and a future membership won’t be decided by politicians until
2018,” said Moeller at a meeting in the west coast city of Esbjerg.

Moeller emphasized that a different Turkey than the one we know today
would be offered membership, or it might be offered a status in the
EU that distinguished it from being a full member.

Much could happen in the future, according to Moeller, such as a
conflict between Europe and Islam. In that case, he said he would
prefer to have Turkey as part of the union rather than outside.