BRUSSELS SHIES AWAY FROM TURKEY-ARMENIA GENOCIDE DISPUTE
By Teresa Kuchler
EUobserver.com, Belgium
May 19 2006
The French parliament on Thursday suspended a vote on a law that would
criminalise denial of the alleged Turkish genocide of Armenians in
the early 1900s, with Brussels shying away from seeing the event as
a political criterium for Turkish EU entry.
In 2001, French lawmakers passed a bill which accuses the Ottoman
Turks of committing genocide against the Armenians between 1915 and
1923, with Armenians asserting the campaign cost 1.5 million lives.
As a consequence, French MPs were on Thursday (18 May) set to vote on a
law similar to already existing legislation against holocaust-denial,
which could see an individual facing a sentence of up to five years
in prison and a ~@45,000 fine.
The president of the French parliament, Jean-Louis Debre, however
interrupted the session in the middle of a heated debate, saying
there was “no time” to deal with the initiative put forward by the
socialist opposition party.
The announcement caused uproar in the visitor’s grandstand, where
dozens of members of the French 400,000-strong Armenian minority
clapped their hands for over five minutes, while shouting “The vote,
the vote!”
For its part, Ankara denies the genocide charges, recognising only
500,000 Armenian deaths during the Ottoman war, and rejects the
genocide tag saying both sides suffered severe losses in the war.
Addressing the plenary in Paris, French foreign minister Philippe
Douste-Blazy following his party’s line, stressed the “serious
political consequences” an adoption of the law would mean.
“The Armenian cause is righteous and it should be defended and
respected. But the national representation must keep France’s
interests in mind, and the methods it uses to defend its principles,”
Mr Douste-Blazy told deputies.
Ankara has announced that Turks could boycott French products and
French firms could lose lucrative contracts if the legislation is
passed, just as the country did in 2001 when the alleged genocide
was officially recognised by French law.
Political criteria in EU talks?
The topic has come up several times in the discussion on a future
possible EU membership of Turkey, which started accession negotiations
last autumn.
A number of European parliament reports urging Turkey to admit to
the genocide have been adopted by MEPs since as far back as 1987.
In September last year MEPs backed a resolution on the matter to
be forwarded to the European Commission, which monitors Turkey’s
readiness for EU accession, urging the latter to include the genocide
in Ankara’s EU membership negotiations with Brussels.
“The proposal that the recognition of the alleged Armenian genocide
as a political criteria has arisen from time to time throughout the
accession process with Turkey,” a commission official told EUobserver.
Brussels has however so far taken a hesitant approach to include
conditions on historical events as political criteria for EU accession,
because of the European continent’s motley war and border history.
The official said that during the bloc’s last enlargement round,
several eastern European member states had- and in some cases still
have- ongoing disputes about “who did what to whom during the war”,
and that therefore it was important to Brussels to stay out of such
disputes.
As for Armenia, the official said “We do not take a stance on the
Armenian case, we leave it to historians to study what happened.”
The official said a number of EU countries were sceptical to a
commission defining historical events, explaining that to add such
a criteria to the current demands would need unanimity among member
states.
He pointed out however that the commission has underlined the
importance of “good neighbourly relations”.
The so-called “accession partnership” text, adopted by EU member
states in January this year, suggests that candidate states “address
any sources of frictions at their borders”.
“That is the closest we get to addressing the matter,” the commission
official said.
Some MEPs have followed along the same line of argument, pointing out
that it would be insensitive and unfair to demand political criteria
for Turkey other than those used for the last round of enlargement.
“The recognition of the Armenian genocide should not be political
criteria for EU accession of Turkey,” leftist German MEP Feleknas Uca
told Euobserver, adding that compliance with the so-called Copenhagen
Criteria should continue to be the sole measure of EU-accession
for Turkey.