BARROSO: "20 YEARS BEFORE TURKEY JOINS EU"
Tiscali Europe, UK
Oct 16 2006
Commission clears ground for pessimistic progress report
Speaking in Brussels last weekend Jose Manuel Barroso, President of
the European Commission, gave the EU executive’s most pessimistic
evaluation yet of Turkey’s accession saying it could take "up to
20 years".
A critical progressive report on the status of Turkish efforts to
meet the EU’s accession criteria is due on 8 November and is likely
to paint a bleak picture for Ankara.
Barroso, vice-president Guenter Verheuguen amd enlargement commissioner
Olli Rehn have all criticised to varying degrees elements of Turkey’s
civil code which limit freedom of expression.
Despite that, the commission’s top brass had remained generally
optimistic, until President Barroso’s recent statement, that is.
It has been a difficult few days for the Turkish government’s European
policy: Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, a fierce critic of the country’s
laws that limit civil liberities, won the Nobel Peace for Literature
and France’s parliament passed a law criminalising the denial of the
1915 Armenian genocide carried out by Ottoman Turkey and denied by
the modern Turkish state.
Pamuk’s award was greeted with a mixture of pride and acrimony,
the French law, however, was widely condemned both in Turkey and
in many quarters abroad. President Barroso called the move "inapt"
and Nobel winner Pamuk said that it was unhelpful.
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