Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-14-Speech-2-139"
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"en.20001114.5.2-139"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, the President-in-Office said this morning, this is a highly topical debate because it coincides with the documents presented by the Commission – the report on Turkey's progress and of course, more importantly, the accession partnership.
This is the first serious step on the road towards Turkey's accession and the accession process can now move into the practical application stage. We, for our part, welcome this. Turkey, for all its differences, always was and still is an integral part of Europe. Old feuds cannot deny Turkey its place in the life of the Member States of the European Union. If Europe can accept Turkey for what it is and welcome it into the European family, with all its differences, it will, I think, have made a quantum political and cultural leap. It will have demonstrated that our values are catholic values which seek not to iron out the differences between the partners but to assimilate their differences and peculiarities.
Of course, in order for there to be assimilation, there must be common ground. Our rapporteur has identified and brought Turkey's attention to this common ground in his really excellent report, for which I too wish to thank him. The common ground is democracy and it presupposes freedom of opinion, i.e. equal human and political rights for everyone, irrespective of national origin, and the right to choose a government in free elections, in truly
free elections and only in free elections, something which is, of course, incompatible with autonomous centres of power, especially autonomous centres of excessive military power. What more could one ask of the Morillon report? Only, perhaps, that it might have stated more clearly at this point that there can be no democracy in Turkey and there can be no accession by Turkey unless the military is stripped of its excessive, constitutionally-protected powers. Democracy is compatible with institutionalised civil functions for the armed forces; it is not compatible with fundamental military intervention in political life, irrespective of whether or not it is sanctioned constitutionally.
It is only natural to expect a democratic country to display a peaceful attitude towards its neighbours, especially if they happen to be future partners. And from this point of view, the report is right to condemn the bombing of Kendakor by the Turkish air force and to highlight and reiterate the Turkish Government's obligation to support negotiations between Turkish and Greek Cypriots without preliminary conditions.
What is worrying is that Turkish officials and the Turkish press seems to be taking a reactionary stand, rather than encouraging Turkey to move in this direction. I trust that Turkey will start to take a more serious view of things and understand just what its obligations are."@en1
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