Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-02-14-Speech-3-019"
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"en.20010214.2.3-019"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office of the Council, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, Turkey has been offered a partnership agreement and, from a procedural point of view, it is right that we should now give this partnership agreement a legal basis, even though Turkey has not yet presented a national programme which will allow us to judge just how far it is prepared to assimilate the various points of the partnership agreement.
However, Mr Swoboda's report is not a standard procedural report, because the country which is the subject of the report is not a standard candidate country. It is a large country and it is very different from the other candidate countries. This difference provokes certain general comments. Turkey's candidacy puts not just Turkey, but the European Union to the test. It is not just Turkey, ladies and gentlemen, which is sitting exams in order to become a member. In this particular case, the European Union is also sitting exams, in numerous subjects. First of all, in the subject of religious tolerance. The opinion which, I think, prevails among most European citizens, is that a different religion should not be an obstacle to the accession of a new member. In democratic Europe, we are proud of our religious tolerance, but we have never been asked to put it to the test as we are now. It is a crucial test of the sincerity of our declarations and we must not flunk it.
The second exam which we are sitting is in powers of persuasion, i.e. our ability to persuade Turkey of the value of substantive acceptance
of our democratic institutions. I stress substantive acceptance
because Turkey has not refused to accept democracy formally; hardly anyone in the world today does. However, there is a wide body of opinion which believes that a democratic state starts and ends with a multi-party system and regular elections. Obviously that will not suffice. It is here, with the substantive acceptance of democracy, that Turkey's development post-Helsinki gives rise to serious questions. Turkey creates the impression, following the European Council's gesture in December 1999, which was welcomed joyfully by the Turkish people, that it is moving away from – rather than towards – a substantive democracy. The amnesty law passed freed many a criminal; but it did not free people sentenced for daring to express an opinion or talk their own language. Leyla Zana, the European Parliament Sakharov prizewinner, is still in jail. The state of emergency persists in south-eastern Turkey and cadres of the legal Kurdish party HADEP have disappeared in the region and been declared missing. The tragedy provoked when the security forces stormed the jails caused public outrage. We expect to see Turkey move forward; instead all we see is it moving backwards.
We are also sitting exams in our ability to persuade Turkey of the value of peaceful relations between former enemies. Here Turkey's conduct shows a regressive trend. We expect words of reconciliation on Cyprus; instead all we hear is the clang of arms.
Ladies and gentlemen, in the Middle Ages, Turkey and its army came knocking on Europe's door in Vienna. The door remained closed. Today Turkey is again knocking on our door, this time in peace, because over the intervening centuries, the real power has passed not to the advocates of military force but to the powers of liberty, democracy, rationalism and science. Herein lies the power of Great Europe and anyone who wants to share in Europe's greatness must truly espouse its principles; otherwise the door to Europe will remain firmly closed."@en1
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