ADVANCED REFORMS FOR EU COULD CONVINCE PUBLIC OPINION

Turkish Daily News
Oct 8 2007

Turkey should continue its reform process and demonstrate that the
reforms will exist not only on paper but also in practice, if it is
to convince the European public opinion about its accession to the
European Union, prominent European politicians said Saturday.

A group of European and Turkish politicians, bureaucrats, academics
and journalists met in Istanbul over the weekend for the Bosporus
Conference organized by the British Council, the Center for European
Reform (CER) and the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation
(TESEV). EU-Turkish relations were debated in a closed panel discussion
titled "The EU and Turkey: Drifting Apart?"

"Turkey should continue the reform process and demonstrate that it
wants to be part of a modern European secular democratic society
with a dynamic economy," Carl Bildt, foreign minister of Sweden said,
in an interview with the Turkish Daily News. A Senior European Union
official attending the same conference voiced a similar message telling
a Turkish television channel that Turkey must move ahead with laws
ensuring freedoms of religion and expression. Prosecuting writers
for criticising Turkish identity is unacceptable, EU Enlargement
Commissioner Olli Rehn told Turkish news Tv chanel NTVMSNBC, according
to Reuters.

Turkey has said it remains fully committed to joining the EU, but key
reforms such as an amendment or withdrawal of article 301, which can
be used to prosecute writers for "insulting Turkishness," are not
likely to be passed before an EU progress report in November. "It
is a human and moral issue. It is not acceptable that writers like
Orhan Pamuk and Elif Þafak are prosecuted based on this article,"
Reuters quoted Rehn saying in his interview with the tv channel.

Before the case against him was dropped, Pamuk was tried in Turkey last
year for telling a Swiss newspaper that 1 million Armenians had died
in Turkey during World War One and 30,000 Kurds had perished in recent
decades. Charges against novelist Þafak were also dropped last year.

Recent efforts by Turkey’s ruling party to change the country’s
constitution also should not delay reforms in expanding freedoms of
expression and religion, Rehn added. "The changes [to the Constitution]
can be a method for expanding fundamental rights and freedoms. But
the preparations should not delay the realisation of freedoms of
expression or religion," he said. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoðan has
said previously that the new constitution will strengthen individual
rights and freedoms, but Turkish officials say article 301 will not be
revised nor overwritten in the new document. Lack of attention to laws
regarding freedom of speech by the ruling Justice and Development Party
(AKP) have led to criticism that the party is being selective in its
reform process. Turkey should prove that the progress is not on paper
but in real life as well, said French parliamentarian Elisabeth Guigou,
vice president of the Committee of Foreign Affairs.

People in Europe are confusing Turkey with Arab countries, and having
the courage to say that Turkey is not the same with Arab countries is
needed and it is the EU’s responsibility to convince public opinion,
Guigou said in an interview with the TDN.

Reforms in the judicial system, the police force and the social
structure are critically important, Guigou said and added: "The weight
of images is much more than words," referring to the role of media
in shaping public opinion.

Public opinion in countries like France, Germany, the Netherlands
and Austria is against Turkey’s EU accession. French President
Nicolas Sarkozy openly opposes Turkey’s membership while German
Chancellor Angela Merkel favors a privileged partnership instead of
full membership.

France and Germany are not the only countries skeptical about Turkey’s
EU accession, said Bildt, but added that he is fairly optimistic that
with further reforms in Turkey, and further evolvement of the EU,
it would be possible, in time, to overcome those obstacles created
by the skeptics.

No threat of Islamisation

Bildt does not see a threat of Islamisation in Turkey, and neither
do the EU ambassadors to Ankara whom he met during the conference.

"The Justice and Development Party (AKP) government has been very
active in pursuing the reform agenda. It would be fair to expect them
to accelerate the reform process," after an expected slow down due
to elections, he said.

EU would be an unmanageable place

Turkey’s membership to EU would trigger the accession of other
countries like the Ukraine, Russia and Moldavia, which would make the
EU unmanageable and a place without cohesion, said Frits Bolkestein,
the president of Telders foundation, a think-tank connected with
the Dutch Liberal Party. Bolkestein is known for opposing Turkey’s
accession to the EU. Turkey is already a member of the customs union
he said, and has a well performing economy, so what is attractive
about Turkey in the EU, he said. The majority of the European public
opinion is against Turkey’s accession, Bolkestein said, but it is not
much to do with the image of Turkey. The huge population of Turkey
is a critical fact too, he added.

The Turkish minority in the Netherlands and Germany would attract
quite a few Turks to settle there after the accession, Bolkestein said,
and that would not be a good thing.

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