Politicians debate Turkey’s EU policy

Turkish Daily News

April 5, 2007 Thursday

Politicians of the opposition parties and the governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) argued over Turkey’s policy toward the European Union as they debated its accession process at the European Movement Turkey’s conference entitled « Turkey’s Roadmap to the EU. » European Movement Turkey organized a conference yesterday to celebrate its 20th anniversary and discussed Turkey’s roadmap to the EU with comments made by prominent members of the EU, NGOs and the business community. During the afternoon session, the political forum became a heated scene for pre-election debates among the politicians despite the thin audience.

AKP deputy and chair of the EU Harmonization Commission Yasar Yakis said that the outlook is not that gloomy despite the decision to suspend membership talks on eight chapters in order to force Turkey to open its ports to traffic from EU member Greek Cyprus. Emphasizing that Turkey should continue to follow its own path, Yakis suggested that Turkey could somehow negotiate the eight chapters by itself in an exchange of ideas with the EU. Yakis also noted that the EU’s capacity to affect Turkey’s policies has diminished because of disjointed decisions. According to deputy president of the Republican People’s Party (CHP) Onur Oymen, this kind of extreme optimism is too much. It does not take into consideration the history of TurkishEU relations, says Oymen in response to Yakis’s speech. Oymen emphasized that the EU should give a clear answer to Turkey whether it would accept Turkey’s membership once it fulfills of all its responsibilities. Turkey would re-examine its custom’s union commitments if denied by the EU, says Oymen referring to CHP’s future policies regarding the EU if the party would win the elections.

Discrimination against Turkey’: On the heels of Oymen’s speech, the deputy president of the True Path Party (DYP) Binhan Oguz alleged in her speech that the EU discriminates against Turkey by imposing conditions that were never placed on other candidate countries. Criticizing governmental policies, Oguz claimed that Turkey did not complete its required justice reformations yet, which could threaten Turkey’s accession to the EU. The President of the European Movement (former President of the European Parliament) Pat Cox told the Turkish Daily News that he could understand their frustrations and even share some of them, as he is familiar with the accession process of Turkey. « But it is not necessary to become less Turkish to be in the EU, but to be in the EU allows Turkey to be more affective as a framework for future evolution, » said Cox commenting on the politicians speeches.