Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-11-19-Speech-2-111"
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"en.20021119.2.2-111"2
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"Mr President, let us hope that Mr Giscard d'Estaing spawns as much discussion with his Convention proposal as with his remarks about the undesirability of Turkey becoming a member. All of a sudden, everyone is worked up about the question of whether it has been right or wrong to hold out to Turkey the prospect of membership. If the truth be told, the two extreme scenarios are not very helpful in this discussion. On the one hand, there are the people who go along with Turkey's membership, provided that all the conditions are met, and on the other there are people who say: no, never. In between these black and white views, there are a large number of people who are trying their best to introduce all kinds of shades of grey. The contribution by Mr Brok was a typical example of this. He is unfortunately no longer present, but if I have understood him correctly, he stated today that he believes Turkey should be given a chance. However, if Turkey met all the EU requirements, then Turkey would no longer be Turkey.
I plead with you, fellow MEPs, and Mr Brok, to stop playing this word game and stop clouding the issue. Yesterday, there was fog at the airport; today, you are producing fog in the Chamber. In the media, Mr Brok spelled out very clearly that he thought that the decision of 1999 to make Turkey a candidate was a mistake and that this mistake should be rectified. I applaud Mr Brok's flexibility and I also applaud his opinion here today, but this attitude as he expressed today is not compatible with the support expressed by himself as rapporteur, for one of Mr Ferber's amendments which states that a special relationship should be established between the EU and Turkey. This is an alternative to membership. I am opposed to this and I hope that Mr Brok is too, today and tomorrow.
I urge you to stop clouding the issue and to stop playing word games. If there is a difference of opinion among us, it is about timing and the different stages in the rapprochement between Turkey and the EU. This is then no longer a discussion about the purpose of all these efforts, namely membership. We should do away with those double agendas, the hypocrisy, the saying 'yes' and hoping 'no'. If we give Turkey the green light, this means that the EU will pull out all the stops to make it possible for Turkey to become a member at some point in the future.
What does this mean in practical terms? If the new Turkish Government were to seize the opportunities of solving the conflict in Cyprus, if that government were at long last to translate the reforms already decided upon into practice, if, in addition, that government wanted to carry out fresh reforms, as it announced this weekend, with zero tolerance towards incidents of torture, if the self-same government were to release prisoners, including the Sakharov Prize winner Lela Zana … if all of this happened, then the EU would have no option but to keep up with that country. I should like to echo the words of Commissioner Verheugen in this connection. If the candidate countries move in the direction of the EU, then the EU cannot afford to stand still. This also means that the rapprochement between Turkey and the EU cannot be unilateral. As far as I am concerned, this means that serious thought should be given in Copenhagen to setting a so-called review date, namely a date, say in a year's time, on which we will reconsider whether Turkey meets all the conditions and all the political criteria and then, if this finding is positive, to have the courage to set a date for negotiations in the future."@en1
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