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EU Lawmakers Slam Turkish Reform Slowdown

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  • EU Lawmakers Slam Turkish Reform Slowdown

    EU LAWMAKERS SLAM TURKISH REFORM SLOWDOWN
    By Darren Ennis

    Reuters, UK
    Sept 4 2006

    STRASBOURG, France (Reuters) - European Union lawmakers approved
    a highly critical report on Monday accusing Turkey of dragging its
    heels on reforms, marking the start of looming crisis between the EU
    and Ankara over its accession bid.

    The EU assembly's foreign affairs committee voted through a paper
    which slammed Turkey for not living up to the commitments it gave when
    it received the green light last October to start talks on joining
    the bloc.

    "The European parliament ... regrets the slowing down of the reform
    process," the report said, pointing to what it called "persistent
    shortcomings" in a range of areas.

    The lawmakers said Turkey had shown "insufficient progress" in
    the areas of freedom of expression, religious and minority rights,
    women's rights and law enforcement since EU leaders agreed to start
    accession talks 11 months ago.

    The report urged Ankara to recognise Cyprus and urged it to "take
    concrete steps for the normalisation of bilateral relations with the
    Republic as soon as possible".

    Experts fear the niggling dispute over Cyprus and mutual public
    disenchantment could lead at worst to a breakdown in accession talks
    with the strategic, Muslim candidate country. But the report stopped
    short of mentioning that scenario.

    "We are not saying that we are not still committed to the talks or
    that we do not want Turkey to join the EU," said Dutch conservative
    Camiel Eurlings, who scripted the report.

    "But we are sending a clear signal to Turkey that it must move quickly
    with its reforms," he told the committee.

    However the report's demand that, as a precondition of membership,
    Ankara acknowledge that Ottoman Turkey committed genocide against
    Armenians in World War One -- a suggestion it strongly rejects --
    will raise tensions further.

    Any country wishing to join the 25-member bloc requires the approval
    of both the European parliament and the agreement of all member states.

    ELECTION PRESSURE

    The report will go before a full parliament sitting at the end of
    the month and is likely to be raised when chief Turkish EU negotiator
    Ali Babacan visits Brussels from Wednesday.

    Babacan will try to reassure EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn
    and other EU officials that Turkey is committed to pressing ahead with
    economic and political reform despite national elections due next year.

    The European parliament has never sought to veto any past accession,
    but it has been effective in pressuring EU hopefuls to speed up
    reforms in previous enlargement rounds.

    However the conservative EPP-ED, the assembly's largest political
    group, still favours "privileged partnership" with Turkey rather than
    full membership.

    The report censures insufficient progress on freedom of expression
    and raises concerns over the lot of religious minorities, corruption,
    and violence against women.

    It also criticised the unusually high threshold for parliamentary
    representation, under which a party must score 10 percent nationwide,
    making it hard for Kurdish groups to win seats in areas where they
    have a majority.

    The Commission is due to issue its regular progress report on October
    24. Rehn has urged Ankara to show tangible improvements in human
    rights legislation by then, not least to offset a likely negative
    finding on its behaviour towards Cyprus.

    The Commission's report will assess whether Ankara has met an
    obligation to open ports to ships from Cyprus, which Turkey does not
    recognise, under a protocol signed last year extending its EU customs
    union to the bloc's 10 new member states.

    If it has not complied, an EU summit in December is likely to put at
    least part of the accession talks on hold.

    (Additional reporting by Hatice Aydogdu in Ankara, Osman Senkul and
    Paul de Bendern in Istanbul and Paul Taylor in Brussels)
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