Turkey's accession to the EU: Greens/EFA call for MEPs to back opening of membership talks

In a press conference today in the European Parliament in Brussels, the Greens/EFA Group rejected attempts by right-wing political parties to thwart the opening of accession talks with Turkey. Reacting to proposed amendments to a parliamentary report on Turkey's progress towards accession, Dutch Green MEP Joost Lagendijk, Co-Chair of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliament committee, said:

"The Eurlings report on Turkey's progress towards accession is, at the moment, fair and balanced. Unless it is radically amended before the vote, my Group will support it in plenary next week. The report is not glowing about Turkey's reforms and nor should it be. It is critical where it needs to be and it is important for Turkey to make progress in these areas. But we absolutely reject proposals from the EPP Group to introduce other options for Turkey should accession talks fail. We must be clear; these talks, while not guaranteeing any outcome, deal with full membership of the EU. "

"Turkey should continue to implement its necessary and often difficult reforms. The Council's conclusions, drafts of which have been leaked, appear to offer adequate flexibility in the interpretation of how the restrictions on the free movement of labour would apply; Turkey should not get overly concerned about the details. Much of which is being said by Member States and in the European press is designed to appease short-term domestic concerns. In the long term and by the time Turkey is ready to join the EU and the EU is ready to integrate Turkey, the situation will be so altered that many of the current concerns will be irrelevant."

German Green MEP Cem Özdemir added:

"I hope that the report is adopted next week by a large majority of MEPs. It would send a strong signal to EU leaders and demonstrate that the claims of widespread political opposition to Turkey's accession, as propagated by right wing parties in Germany, Austria and France, are baseless. The same people are misusing the concerns of some sections of Turkish society about their liberties and rights. We should be clear; while these concerns are genuine and while we urge the Turkish government to take the necessary steps to correct the problems and ' fill in the gaps' in its reform programme, all of the concerned members of society and the NGOs working specifically on these issues are absolutely in favour of Turkey joining the EU. They see that membership will help bring about the societal changes that they so badly need."

"On the issue of Cyprus, and Turkey's recognition and diplomatic ties with the island, it is clear that every member of the Union must respect and recognise the legitimacy of each other. Turkey will have to normalise its relations with Cyprus and the Turkish government accepts this. But at no stage was recognition of Cyprus a precondition for the opening of accessions talks, and the Council should reject efforts to make it one."

Source: www.greens-efa.org/cms/pressreleases/dok/101/101230.turkeys_accession_to_the_eu@en.htm