EU TO BALANCE CRITICISM, PRAISE IN TURKEY REPORT

Bangladesh News 24 hours
July 15 2009

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BRUSSELS, Nov 5 (bdnews24.com/Reuters) – Europe’s enlargement chief
will praise Turkey’s democratic resolution of a constitutional crisis
when he unveils progress reports on candidates for EU membership on
Tuesday, but seek a new push for stalled political reforms.

Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn will also warn that political
problems left over from the ethnic conflicts of the 1990s are blocking
progress in several Western Balkan countries towards joining the
27-nation European Union, aides said.

Rehn is keen to stress the positive after the Turkish government
faced down a challenge from the military this year to its candidate
for president, former Islamist Abdullah Gul, and won a resounding
mandate from voters. Gul is now president.

But the report may give ammunition to Ankara’s critics by detailing
a lack of progress on freedom of expression and religion, civilian
control over the military and the rights of women, minorities including
Kurdish-speakers and trade unions.

"For the first time in four years, we don’t have a crisis in the EU
over Turkey this autumn," a European Commission official said, noting
that despite strong public scepticism on both sides, the accession
process was plodding slowly forward.

However, the official said Turkey could yet trigger fresh controversy
in the EU if it stages a military incursion against armed Turkish
Kurdish separatists operating from northern Iraq.

While fear of a further setback to its EU membership hopes may be a
factor restraining Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, EU officials say
domestic and regional pressures are so strong that Brussels may have
little sway on the decision.

Ankara began tortuous membership negotiations in 2005 but part of
the talks were suspended last December after it refused to open its
ports and airports to traffic from Cyprus.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the populous, secular but
mostly Muslim country is not in Europe and should not join the Union,
but he has allowed its entry talks to proceed at snail’s pace in his
six months in office.

ULTIMATE BORDERS

Aides said Rehn will press Turkey to move quickly to reform article 301
of its penal code, used to prosecute journalists and intellectuals for
"insulting Turkishness", notably over the mass killings of Armenians
in 1915 as the Ottoman empire crumbled.

Foreign Minister Ali Babacan, who is also Turkey’s chief EU negotiator,
has deflected calls for swift action on this, saying a planned new
constitution will bring freedom of expression and religion into line
with European standards.

"We are saying that is not good enough. They need to move faster on
article 301, which was used to bring more prosecutions last year than
in 2005," the EU official said.

Sarkozy is delaying the extension of talks with Turkey into new
policy areas to press for an EU summit next month to create a panel of
"wise people" to consider the Europe’s long-term role, which in his
mind includes its ultimate borders.

But diplomats say supporters of enlargement such as Britain and Sweden
have made clear they will not accept any mandate that would involve
drawing final frontiers or calling into question the EU’s commitment
to Turkey’s accession.

On the Balkans, the reports will note progress in Croatia’s accession
process but urge Zagreb and other governments in the region to do
more to reform their justice systems and fight widespread corruption
and organised crime.

Rehn had hoped to have concluded first-level agreements on closer
ties with all the former Yugoslav republics, but Bosnia’s failure to
enact a key police reform and Serbia’s lack of full cooperation with
the UN war crimes tribunal have stalled both countries’ progress.