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Enlargement fatigue hits EU as it talks Turkey

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  • Enlargement fatigue hits EU as it talks Turkey

    Sunday Herald, UK
    Oct 2 2005

    Enlargement fatigue hits EU as it talks Turkey

    ANALYSIS: By Trevor Royle, Diplomatic Editor



    Diplomats call it `enlargement fatigue' - the feelings of anxiety and
    lack of energy that have suddenly checked the seemingly inexorable
    growth of the European Union. Today in Luxembourg, EU foreign
    ministers will test the syndrome to the full when they sit down at
    emergency talks aimed at breaking the deadlock over Turkey's bid to
    join the European club in 2015. Unless agreement is reached, the
    accession talks due to start tomorrow morning will be put on hold and
    Europe will have a crisis on its hands.
    Brussels saw warnings and protests yesterday as 4000 Turkish Kurds
    marched through the city, demanding that the entry talks include
    recognition for a Kurdish homeland in the southeast of the country.
    Lord Patten, the former EU external affairs commissioner, also warned
    yesterday that if negotiations break down over the coming days it
    will `have very bad implications'. He added: `What the hell signal do
    we send to the rest of the world if we can't accept Turkish accession
    to the EU?'

    The deliberations will test Britain's presidency of the EU to the
    full - no other issue has divided the community so deeply in recent
    years. Doubts have surrounded Turkey's application ever since it was
    mooted in 1999, resurfacing with a vengeance last week when Austria
    gave notice that it was opposed to the move.

    It mooted a compromise which would give Turkey a partnership with the
    EU instead of full-blown membership. The proposal did not go down
    well in Ankara: prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has angrily
    insisted his country will walk away from the talks rather than
    negotiate for what is seen in Turkey as a grubby compromise.

    In some quarters, opposition to Turkish accession has been touted as
    an anti-Islamic prejudice. Turkey's population of 70 million is
    predominantly Muslim, and there are lingering memories of the
    massacres of 1.5 million Armenian Christians during the first world
    war, an episode generally regarded as the first genocide of the 20th
    century.

    Although it seems perverse to use a 90-year-old incident as evidence
    of a modern country's unfitness to join the EU, the genocide is
    usually mentioned in conjunction with accusations about Turkey's
    human rights record, not least its continued prosecution of writers,
    notably of distinguished novelist Orhan Pamuk for criticising the
    state.

    There are also concerns about Turkey's refusal to acknowledge Cyprus.
    Critics point to the anomaly that would see Cypriot ships and
    aircraft being banned from Turkish ports and airports while Turkey's
    application was being negotiated. But it is not just anti-Islamic
    sentiment which is holding up the negotiations.

    A recent poll across the EU found that there is only 35% support for
    Turkey's membership - in Austria, just 10% - and there is a
    widespread feeling that the enlargement policy has gone far enough;
    the EU has to fully absorb its current membership of 25 before it
    starts adding others.

    Ahead lie applications from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the states
    in the Balkans and the Caucasus and there is a growing feeling that
    the enlargement policy has to be settled before entering into
    negotiations with Turkey.

    And that is the rub. The EU is no longer the buoyant, wealth-filled
    institution which thought that it could grow like Topsy, regardless
    of cost, convenience or constitutional change. France has already
    voiced its disapproval by voting `No' in the recent referendum on a
    European constitution, largely in protest against Turkey's
    application, and there is similar disquiet in older EU members, such
    as Germany and the Netherlands.

    That opposition has led to calls for the European institutional
    framework to be put in place before Turkey's application is
    considered. As a German diplomat told the Sunday Herald last week:
    `We don't even have a constitution for 25 states, so how can we
    stretch it further to embrace 35?'

    One way out of the impasse could be provided by the country which
    leads the objections to Turkey's membership. Austria supports
    Croatia's bid to join the EU, which began earlier this year but was
    put on hold until Zagreb co-operated more fully with the
    International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Given
    Austria's traditional friendship with Croatia, it would not surprise
    anyone if it were brought into the equation ahead of tomorrow's
    crucial meeting.
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