Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-01-Speech-4-027"
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"en.20040401.2.4-027"2
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"Mr President, I thank our exceptional rapporteur for his
and the soberness with which he approached his subject and the open mind with which he accepted our amendments which, contrary to what Mr Van Orden maintains, do not want to take Turkey back to terms which have already been satisfied, but want the reforms to be carried out in practice, rather than just on paper, as a fictitious reality. Of course, fictitious reality may suffice for Mr Van Orden, just as it suffices for him for the European Union to be a fictitious reality, from what I have understood, because he is aiming for a relaxed European Union. That is not our idea.
There are those who maintain that a Muslim Turkey cannot be accepted into the European Union. We do not agree with this; we want a Turkey which can of course be Muslim and will be, but it must be democratic and pacifist, at least towards its partners in the European Union. If Turkey thinks that we shall accept it as a military power and that we shall ratify the militaristic attitude of the leaders of its armed forces within the European Union, it is making a serious mistake. Nor is Turkey's stance in Cyprus encouraging and I greatly fear that neither the Secretary General's plan nor the stance of the European Commission are encouraging, because they cannot accept a massive military presence, which is equivalent to the military occupation of part of Cyprus, 18 years after the entry of Cyprus to the European Union, and probably even after the admittance of Turkey to the European Union.
These are absurd things and may explain the impatience of the Greek side towards the Annan plan. I hope and I am in favour of the Greek side's accepting the plan in question, but we must realise that we are asking the Greek side to build a democracy on something which is fundamentally anti-democratic, as the Annan plan is in its present state. I hope that we manage this for the good of Cyprus and the European Union, but we need to know what we are asking for.
As far as Turkey's progress towards satisfying the Copenhagen criteria is concerned, on paper, yes! In reality, it is far from it. For example, the Minister for Education is asking for fanatical essays from pupils against other nationalities. It is not a question of the reform reaching the depths of the Orient. The reform needs to reach the depths of the Ministry of Education first. The rector of the University of Istanbul is standing up and talking about 135 000 dead in order to occupy both Cyprus and Greece. I am not saying that he is representative of all of public opinion or of the government; but this shows that there is resistance by one part of public opinion at least to certain fundamental changes and they must be taken into account, because the integration of Turkey into the European Union can only come about as and when the attitude within Turkey changes.
Of course, we have the case of Leyla Zana, who is a constant slap in the face of the European Parliament and I wonder how we still suffer this situation to continue.
It was posited by the president of Turkish industry two years ago that Turkey will either become Europe or will become Pakistan. We want Turkey to become Europe and, in order to achieve this, we must strengthen every progressive trend within Turkey, so that this is achieved from internal procedures, not from being led by the hand from outside because, if it is led by the hand from outside, we cannot hope that there will be change where change is needed in Turkey."@en1
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