POLL SHOWS PUBLIC’S SUPPORT FOR EU WANING IN TURKEY
Ethan Mcnern
Scotsman, United Kingdom
Oct 25 2006
FEWER than a third of Turks think their country must enter the European
Union, a poll showed yesterday, as Ankara comes under increasing
pressure to make concessions before it can join.
The survey, published in the newspaper Milliyet, showed 32.2 per cent
thought Turkey "must certainly enter the EU", a sharp decline on the
57.4 per cent figure last year and 67.5 per cent in 2004.
The poll, which shows a more dramatic decline in EU support than
other recent surveys, comes as Brussels is urging Turkey to step up
reforms and make concessions over the divided island of Cyprus if it
is to avoid a possible freeze in membership talks later this year.
The survey may make it harder for Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister,
who faces elections next year, to push through unpopular measures
demanded by the EU.
Of the 2,408 people polled, 25.6 per cent said Turkey "should certainly
not enter the EU" – only 10.3 per cent felt that way last year.
The survey was carried out in late September, and since then
nationalism and anti-EU feeling have been fuelled further by a law
passed in the French parliament making it a crime to deny – as Ankara
does – that Ottoman Turks carried out genocide against Armenians
in 1915.
The poll also showed that only 7.2 per cent trust the EU. Many Turks,
including the government, complain that Brussels is changing the
rules over Cyprus as it goes along.
The EU is due to present a report on Turkey’s progress on 8 November,
which will probably criticise Ankara for a lack of reform on issues
such as minority and religious rights and freedom of speech –
prosecutors have continued to take journalists and writers to court
over insulting "Turkishness".
Meanwhile, Turkey still refuses to open its ports and airports to
Greek Cypriot planes and vessels. Ankara supports a breakaway Cyprus
in the north, refusing to recognise the EU-member Cypriot government
in the south.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress