Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-062"
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"en.20001114.3.2-062"2
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".
Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, ladies and gentlemen, I should like to start by extending my warmest thanks to Mr Morillon and Mr Seppänen for their highly constructive and politically intelligent reports and to say that this debate is taking place at a most auspicious time, a time when we are in a position to set relations between the European Union and Turkey on what may prove to be a decisive course.
I have stressed time and again in my contacts with the Turkish Government that the European Union expects Turkey to give a firm undertaking that it will take action to implement these reform objectives. And I must say that I am convinced that the Turkish Government is firmly resolved to take a decisive approach to the reform projects needed. President Sezar clearly stated why Turkey had no alternative but to embark on this process of reform in his address to the Turkish Government last month and I fully endorse what the Turkish President said. Turkey must become a full democracy, not only because the European Union insists on it but because the Turkish people deserve it.
What all this means is that we still have a great deal of work to do. That also applies to meeting the economic criteria and the capacity to adopt the
. Here too, I agree in the main with Mr Morillon's report.
As you know, the Commission proposed a directive in July, setting out the legal basis for the accession partnership and creating a uniform financial framework. This text has been submitted for you to take a stand on it. I should like to take this opportunity of asking you to support this proposal. Without a legal basis, the accession partnership will not have what I for one am sure will be a positive political impact, because we will be unable to pass a resolution on it.
We are calling on Turkey, as a candidate for membership of the European Union, to engage in a process of comprehensive reform. But that means that we too must be prepared to support Turkey's process of reform, just as we are supporting all the other candidate countries with substantial funding. As a possible contribution to this, the Commission has proposed that the European Investment Bank grant Turkey a line of credit of EUR 450 million, to be used mainly to improve the competitiveness of the Turkish economy on the internal market.
Completion of the necessary political reforms will be one of the focal points – if not the focal point – of relations between the Union and Turkey. I am delighted that you will be exchanging views on this question with your Turkish counterparts in the joint parliamentary committee next week. I also welcome the proposals in this report on stepping up parliamentary cooperation and strengthening civil society. Thank you.
As you know, not only has the Commission recently submitted the progress report for the year 2000; it has also proposed an accession partnership for the very first time in the history of our relations. I am delighted to be able to report that the Turkish Government has since acknowledged this accession partnership as the basis for further cooperation, giving us good cause to hope that we will achieve precisely what we set out to achieve, i.e. that our policy will help the forces of reform in Turkey give new impetus to the reform process and press on with reform in a bid to achieve membership of the European Union.
This draft resolution highlights our common objective of bringing Turkey closer to the European Union. We must constantly repeat in no uncertain terms that it is in our strategic European interest to anchor Turkey solidly and permanently in our community of values. We want Turkey to be a modern, open state in which democracy and human rights are respected, the rule of law applies and minorities are protected and respected. We can already see that the Helsinki process has set a series of interesting and important developments in motion.
In Turkey itself, the first signs of the incipient reform process, a process of fundamental and comprehensive political reform, are beginning to show. Relations between Greece and Turkey have improved considerably. Just a few days ago, the Greek and Turkish foreign secretaries confirmed that both countries wished to agree on and implement further confidence-building measures, both bilaterally and under the aegis of NATO. And finally, negotiations on Cyprus have been resumed under the aegis of the United Nations. So far, five rounds of talks have taken place. That in itself is a huge success.
However, the Commission stands by what it has clearly stated in its progress report, i.e. that Turkey, like every other candidate country, must meet the Copenhagen criteria during the process of
. For the moment, we are focusing mainly on the political criteria, because accession negotiations are out of the question until all the political criteria have been met. I repeat: accession negotiations are out of the question until we are sure that the political conditions have been met; which is not the case at present.
Concerns have been voiced on several occasions here in the House. I agree: we should be worried that there is too little respect for human rights and the rights of minorities, we should be worried about the constitutional role of the army and we are still extremely worried about the situation of the population of Kurdish origin and about the state of emergency in the four remaining provinces in the south-east.
However, as I have said, the Helsinki process is already showing positive developments and positive results. The most important thing, as far as I am concerned, is that Helsinki triggered a debate in Turkey, a public debate on the conditions of Turkey's accession to the EU, a debate which is supporting and bolstering the forces of reform in Turkey. For example, the Human Rights Committee in the Turkish national assembly has reported on torture in Turkey and the Turkish government has passed a resolution to bring the Turkish constitution and the Turkish legal system into line with the values of the European Union.
What is important is that everything which being announced and discussed in Turkey is actually being put into practice. I think that the accession partnership which we have tabled is the best way of supporting this process and of ensuring that the European Union is able to exert the necessary influence on the process itself. We have listed the short- and medium-term priorities which Turkey needs to implement under a national programme in order to meet the Copenhagen criteria and on which financial support will then be based.
The political section of our report describes the fundamental and comprehensive political reforms. They include constitutional guarantees of freedom of opinion, assembly and religion, the abolition of the death penalty, and end to torture, reconciling the role of the military with the rules of play of a democratic society, lifting the state of emergency in the south-east of the country and guaranteeing cultural rights for all Turks, irrespective of their national origin."@en1
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