SLOVAKIA REJECTS CHANGE OF RULES IN TURKEY-EU MEMBERSHIP TALKS
Today’s Zaman
Nov 4 2009
Turkey
While extending Slovakia’s full support for Turkey’s bid to become a
full member of the European Union, Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav
Lajcak has cautioned that changing preconditions set for accession to
the bloc when Turkey has already started negotiations for membership
is completely out of the question.
Lajcak’s remarks, during an interview with a group of journalists
who were in the Slovak capital of Bratislava for President Abdullah
Gul’s official visit to the city, came as an implicit reference to
Turkey-critics within the EU who are led by France and Germany.
The EU opened accession talks with Ankara — an EU candidate since
1999 — in October 2005, but these have been progressing slowly amid
opposition from France and Germany. The unresolved Cyprus dispute
and a slowdown of reforms in Turkey are other factors hampering the
accession process.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela
Merkel are the most high-profile European politicians opposed to
Turkey’s accession. Sarkozy claims Turkey does not belong in Europe,
while Merkel promotes a "privileged partnership" that falls short of
membership, a formula Ankara categorically rejects. In Berlin in May,
Merkel and Sarkozy made a joint statement declaring that they shared
a common position regarding Turkey’s accession to the EU, in that it
should be offered a privileged partnership, not full EU membership.
"When it fulfills the required criteria, Turkey should be accepted as
a full member. Conditions should not be changed while negotiations
are continuing," Lajcak said Tuesday. The Slovak minister’s remarks
are reminiscent of the stance displayed by Turkish Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan vis-a-vis the leaders of Germany and France,
as he constantly warns the two leaders that the rules of the game
cannot be changed halfway through.
"Turkey is an influential country which plays a constructive role in
its region. It has a deep knowledge of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Middle
East. As the EU, we want to take advantage of Turkey’s knowledge and
experiences," Lajcak said, noting that he had observed Turkey’s clout
in the Balkans when he served as an EU representative in Bosnia.
Lajcak, whose country entered the EU in 2004, was critical of the
union’s performance.
"The EU should revive persuasiveness of the enlargement process. The
union has recently focused so much on internal reforms, leading to a
negative impact on enlargement perspectives. In the last six-seven
years, the EU has been struggling with its internal matters," the
minister said.
Referring to the fact that during a Brussels summit last week, EU
leaders approved a key concession to the Czech Republic that appears
to clear the way for the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty, Lajcak said
the time was now ripe for refocusing on the enlargement process. As of
Tuesday, the Czech top court cleared the EU-reforming Lisbon Treaty,
one of the last hurdles to its ratification.
"Our answer to the question of from where the borders of the EU will
pass is: the Balkans and Turkey," Lajcak went on to say.
The minister, meanwhile, also lent support to Turkey’s efforts to
normalize its relations with its estranged neighbor Armenia, while
urging swift resolution to the Cyprus issue.
Lajcak said he believed that the normalization of relations between
Armenia and Turkey would help in the resolution of other regional
issues in the Caucasus, including the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute
between Armenia and Azerbaijan. He noted that his government has
been closely following the government’s democratization initiative,
which is expected to expand freedoms for Turkey’s Kurds.
In Bratislava, Merkel and Sarkozy got their share of criticism from
Gul in a speech delivered at the Turkey-Slovakia Business Council
meeting held on Tuesday. "Some of the big countries of the EU have
forgotten the principle of pacta sunt servanda," Gul said, referring to
a principle of international law in Latin which means that agreements
must be kept. "We haven’t seen support from these countries on our way
to EU membership. Such manners by these countries have been harming
confidence in the EU," he added, in apparent reference to France
and Germany.
A recent survey has revealed the impact of the French and German
leaders’ constant objection to Turkey’s EU bid, with a significant
loss of confidence in these two countries among the public. According
to the survey, conducted in August by the Ankara-based International
Strategic Research Organization (USAK), France is third on the list
of countries regarded as a threat by the public, while there has
been a large decrease in Turkish people’s opinion of Germany as a
friendly country.