Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-04-Speech-3-162"
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"en.20030604.4.3-162"2
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"Mr President, Mr Oostlander’s report has been quite substantially modified at the committee stage, as other honourable Members have already commented. It is now more balanced, and this is undoubtedly an improvement. It is to be expected that a report like this one should make mention of a certain number of deficiencies and lapses, especially relating to issues of human rights and public freedoms. On all these points, I believe one can only agree with the rapporteur.
On the other hand, I cannot agree as fully with one of the rapporteur’s personal preferences, which, though concealed for the most part by the amendments, is nevertheless latent and sometimes explicit. I am referring to what I would term Mr Oostlander’s pathological aversion to secularism and the secular ideal. This aversion also made an appearance in the brief oral presentation during which he mentioned what he called Turkey’s political philosophy. Through a consideration of the historical context, he likened this philosophy to totalitarianism, one of the most monstrous forms of political oppression Europe has ever spawned. In point of fact, Mr Oostlander, Kemalism was by no means a totalitarian system, and did not follow totalitarian models. Kemalism, which was unquestionably a form of enlightened despotism, set out to modernise Turkey rapidly, drawing its inspiration to a not inconsiderable degree from Western European democratic models, most notably those of the separation of Church and State and secular republicanism.
You see, Mr Oostlander, as Turkey applies to join the European Union (and it is natural for that application to give rise to discussion and even argument), any pride it can take today in its positive historical legacy is attributable to that very attempt to introduce our European secularism into a Muslim society. For that, as some of the honourable Members have said, is the challenge, or one of the challenges, of the twenty-first century. I do not think there is any justification for adopting the disgruntled attitude you have shown towards the secular ideal in recital G of your report. Today’s Europe is rooted in that ideal, which stands out with great clarity, to my mind, in the Charter of Fundamental Rights we have accepted. You ought to adopt the opposite stance, welcoming the secular ideal more warmly and valuing it more highly.
Mr President, Turkey had the right to apply for membership. I believe that it will have the right to remain at the application stage for some time, for its progress is slow and must be monitored closely by us. That does not give us licence simply to parrot the phrase ‘some progress, but could do better if he tried’, so beloved of schoolteachers. We must not forget that application for membership of the European Union is akin, for Turkey, to the United States’ experience of the concept of the frontier at the end of the nineteenth century. That kind of stirring, pioneering front provides the impetus to move further on. From that perspective, we must encourage Turkey’s application."@en1
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