Gulf Times, Qatar
Sept 2 2006
Turkey seen getting EU thumbs down in reform
Published: Saturday, 2 September, 2006, 10:16 AM Doha Time
Rehn … due to meet Turkish officials for talks on Thursday
BRUSSELS: European Union lawmakers are set to approve a report
slamming the slow pace of reform in Turkey in the latest warning from
Brussels that the accession hopeful must do better.
A draft of the report to be voted on by the European Parliament’s
foreign affairs committee on Monday complains of insufficient
progress on freedom of expression and raises concerns over the lot of
religious minorities, corruption, and violence against women.
The report comes weeks before a crucial European Commission
assessment of Ankara’s reform efforts and follows a growing chorus of
concern from EU officials that Turkey has been dragging its heels
since opening entry talks last October.
`The European Parliament … regrets the slowing down of the reform
process,’ the draft report said, highlighting what it called
`persistent shortcomings’ across a range of areas.
`The report is a clear signal that if Turkey wants the process to be
successful, the speed of reforms must be increased,’ Camiel Eurlings,
the Dutch conservative charged with drafting the report, told
Reuters.
Eurlings, in a telephone interview from Istanbul on a trip to meet
religious minorities, urged the European Union’s Executive Commission
to put more pressure on Ankara by setting deadlines for reforms in
specific areas to be implemented.
Legally, the European Parliament must give its assent to any state
joining the bloc but has never sought to veto any past accession.
However, it has been effective in pressuring EU hopefuls to speed
reforms in previous enlargement rounds.
Ankara has denied that the pace of reform has slowed since last
October and has said it may call parliament back from its summer
recess two weeks early in mid-September to push through the latest
package of reforms.
The report praised recent acquittals of academics prosecuted for
`insulting Turkishness’ but cited concerns over cases such as that of
Armenian-Turkish editor Hrant Dink, given a suspended six-month jail
term for remarks about claims that Ottoman Turkey committed genocide
against Armenians in World War I.
A forthcoming law aimed at protecting religious minorities did not go
far enough, the report added, whereas a law passed in June increasing
the number of crimes classified as terrorism could undermine recent
advances in human rights, it said.
Progress on reforms was lacking in other areas including
civil-military relations, law enforcement, women’s and trade union
rights and the independence of the judiciary, it said.
The report affirmed EU calls for Turkey to remove what could be the
main stumbling block in the talks this year, notably its refusal to
implement an agreement with the EU opening its sea and air ports to
Cypriot traffic.
The EU has warned that failure to implement the protocol this year
extending Turkey’s customs union with the EU to 10 new members could
jeopardise Turkey’s negotiations with the union.
EU officials from Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn down have warned
Ankara in recent weeks it needs to speed up efforts to meet EU
standards, particularly in areas such as freedom of expression and
combating violence against women.
Rehn is due to meet Turkish Economy Minister Ali Babacan, Ankara’s
chief EU negotiator, for talks in Brussels next Thursday.
Recent polls show not only that most Europeans are against the poor,
mainly Muslim country entering the bloc but that Turks themselves are
becoming increasingly disillusioned with the EU accession process,
seen taking over a decade. – Reuters