Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-13-Speech-1-064"
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"en.20041213.10.1-064"2
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".
Mr President, my group also supports this report as it is now before us, following amendments in the Committee on Foreign Affairs. As the rapporteur has already stated, it is a critical, but constructive report. That does not mean that we agree with every paragraph – that is also why our group has tabled amendments – but we support the basic ideas in it.
I should like to respond to two positions in the debate, not only in that conducted in the European public square, but also in this House. Let me start with the position of those who are simply opposed to Turkish membership. Mr Poettering has put this into words and there is no time to go into all those arguments. What I should like to alert you to is the attempt, by means of amendments, to include this position in Mr Eurlings’ report after all, by anticipating, sometimes in a toned down version, the possible failure of the negotiations and to refer back to other forms of relations between Turkey and the European Union.
Let me be quite clear. It is not for this House to labour the obvious or to reward the Christian Democrats for the way they make politics with symbols. The report is very clear on this point. The negotiations must be opened as soon as possible and without any unnecessary delays. Nothing in life is certain; that also applies to these negotiations, but the objective, namely full membership, must be clear-cut. That is unambiguous, and it should stay that way. I urge you to vote down all attempts to do away with this clarity.
A second position is adopted in the debate by those critics who feel that too little has happened and that far more should happen, particularly in the area of human rights. I do not propose to mince words about that either. Together with the President, Mr Borrell and Mr Eurlings, I visited Turkey only last week, and spoke to many people in Istanbul, Ankara and also in Dyabakir. We spoke with human rights activists, lawyers and religious minorities. They all said that indeed, there is still a great deal amiss in Turkey; some said that we are only halfway there. However, at the end of all those talks, they all pleaded with us to open negotiations, those being the best guarantee of success for the reforms that are now taking place. Moreover, they are the best encouragement for all those people who, over the past fifteen years, have risked life and limb to dedicate themselves to reforms.
Both the Commission’s report and that produced by Mr Eurlings contain sufficient guarantees to simply suspend negotiations in the unlikely event of future deteriorations in the area of human rights. If you value those human rights, if you really think that torture should be forced back further, if you think that the Kurds should acquire rights not only on paper but also in practice, then I urge you to vote in favour of opening negotiations. That does not mean that things will change tomorrow, or that things will be easy. I realise this, and so do the Turks, but the opportunity is there, and we should not spoil it.
I really do hope that, during Wednesday’s vote, Parliament will finally be capable of taking a strategic decision with implications that stretch far beyond Europe, and that the European Council will do likewise two days later. As Mr Schulz has already pointed out, Turkey can demonstrate that democracy and Islam very much go hand in hand. That is the best antidote against the sceptics who are monopolising the issue in Europe at the moment and who claim that this will never be possible. Turkey can demonstrate that it is possible, and Europe can demonstrate that it can contribute to preventing a clash of civilisations between the West and the Islamic world, a clash for which many fundamentalists in the East and West are hoping. Europe can show that, based on shared values, there is room for more than one culture and that in the Europe of the twenty-first century, there is room for more than one religion."@en1
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