OVERVIEW: EU STANCES ON TURKEY

Cafe Babel, France
Nov 8 2006

With the EU progress reports on Turkey coming out this week, the
country is in the spotlight. Where do the EU members stand on its
membership bid?

Roughly there are three groups. Those who are in favour of Turkish
entry, those who are against and those who are stuck in the middle.

The United Kingdom and Finland are two countries in favour of Turkish
membership. The Finnish Presidency has for months been engaging
in ´sauna diplomacy´, trying to find a solution to the problem of
Cyprus, that is to say the opening of Turkish ports and harbours to
Cypriot ships and planes. In December the Council is expected to say
whether or not Turkey has made sufficient progress on this issue,
but Commission President Barroso has stated he expects trouble ahead.

France and Germany are against. In Germany, the coalition government
is split, with the SPD in favour of membership and the CDU in favour
of a ´privileged partnership´ with Turkey, stopping short of full
membership. In France, elections are upcoming. The likely candidate
for the right, Nicolas Sarkozy, is against Turkish membership As for
the left, it is still unclear, but it was the Socialist party which
introduced a bill making it a crime to deny that Armenians suffered
genocide at the hands of Ottoman Turks after the first world war.

France will have a referendum on Turkish membership before negotiations
are concluded.

Others, mostly the new member states, seem undecided. Poland, while
inclined to listen to Pope Benedict´s claim that Turkey is perhaps
not culturally a part of Europe , is demanding fair treatment of
candidate states, Turkey among them.

–Boundary_(ID_7eD9QU69DYrC3YITapz/gw)–