With deal on Turkey in hand, Europe’s borders set to press into Asia
Agence France Presse — English
December 18, 2004 Saturday 1:35 AM GMT
BRUSSELS Dec 18 — Barely seven months after its biggest ever
enlargement, the European Union has taken a bold step to push its
eastern-most borders deep into continental Asia’s western frontier
in Turkey.
After a bruising two days of summit haggling, and not a little
nail-biting, leaders of the 25 EU member states agreed terms to begin
EU accession talks with Ankara on October 3 next.
Then, on Friday, Turkey accepted its long-cherished invitation.
“We did not obtain all that we wanted 100 percent,” said Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, “but we can say that it was a
success… We have reached a point where Turkey is rewarded for 41
years of efforts.”
“We have been writing history today,” added Dutch Prime Minister
Jan Peter Balkenende, savouring success as his nation wraps up its
six-month turn at the rotating EU presidency.
He called the outcome — which EU leaders welcomed with a robust
round of applause — “an important and brave decision by Turkey,
by Cyprus and by the EU as a whole”.
Significantly, the European Union pledged Turkey nothing less than
full membership at the end of the process — and not a second-class
“partnership” as some skeptical EU members, led by Austria, proposed.
Accession talks, plus a raft of economic and political reforms to
bring Turkey closer to EU standards, are likely to run a decade or so.
So no one should expect to see Turkey as a bona fide European power
before 2015 or so.
When it does join, however, it will be the EU’s first predominantly
Muslim member state — and bring Europe’s political borders right up
to Iraq, Iran, Syria and the Caucasus states of Armenia, Azerbaijan
and Georgia.
The significance was not lost on British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
a staunch supporter of EU membership for NATO-member Turkey, which he
sees as a beacon of secularism and democracy for the wider Middle East.
“It shows that those who believe that there is some fundamental clash
of civilisations between Christians and Muslims are actually wrong,
that we can work together, that we can cooperate together,” he said.
The United States was delighted, too.
“Turkey’s full integration into the EU will be good for Europe and
the world. The announcement of accession talks brings this step closer
than ever,” said a White House spokesman.
Smiling for their own reasons Friday were ex-communist EU hopefuls
Bulgaria and Romania, who were told that they will sign accession
treaties in April next year, ahead of their planned entry in January
2007.
Croatia, born out of the violent break-up of the old Yugoslavia,
was meanwhile told it can start accession talks in March next year,
but under a strict condition — that it “fully cooperate” with the
UN war crimes tribunal.
Closing a deal with Turkey turned out harder than expected when a
rift emerged Friday over extending a 1963 customs protocol between
Ankara and the then European common market to include the 10 newest
EU member states, which joined last May 1.
One of the 10 is the ethnic Greek republic of Cyprus — a problem
because Turkey only recognises an ethnic Turkish statelet on the north
side of the Mediterranean island that it militarily helped to create
30 years ago.
Deft diplomacy meant that language in the final agreement was
rewritten to allow Turkey to promise that it will sign the protocol not
immediately, but sometime before the October 3 start of negotiations.
Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos said he was “satisfied”. But he
warned that once Turkey signs on the dotted line, it must fully live
up to its obligations under the protocol, which covers free movement
of people as well as goods.
“The implementation of the protocol is not only the commitment to
sign, but its (actual) implementation… If they don’t do it, simply,
they don’t start negotiations,” he said.
