Turkije wil niets minder dan volledig EU-lidmaatschap (en)

EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS - Turkey's EU negotiator told MEPs Ankara wants nothing short of full membership, with Brussels and London backing the bid in the teeth of French and German opposition.

Speaking in the European Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Tuesday (12 July) Ali Babacan said "No document signed between Turkey and the EU nor any other EU decision envisages any other option".

Mr Babacan was responding to voices in the EU in favour of granting Turkey a "privileged partnership" status instead of full membership.

In Germany, the Christian Democrat opposition (CDU), which is likely to win early legislative elections in September, is against Turkish accession.

"We want to support the democratic and economic development of Turkey, with whom we are bound closely in security policy through NATO, through a privileged partnership not with an unrealistic perspective of membership", the CDU said in their electoral manifesto published on Monday (11 July).

Other opponents to Ankara's membership include French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who might be the next French president in 2007, according to French media.

However, Mr Babacan made it clear that "we [EU and Turkey] already maintain a special relationship" anyway, so the so-called privileged partnership is not an option.

Commission against "privileged partnership" too

EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn expressed the same view in Berlin on Tuesday, after meeting CDU leader Angela Merkel.

"Whatever more that [privileged partnership] could mean I'm willing to listen, but I have not yet heard very convincing answers", he was reported as saying by Reuters.

"Therefore my aim is to start negotiations on 3 October and create the conditions for Turkey to continue its bold and significant reforms", he added.

Like Mr Babacan, the commissioner stressed that the EU already enjoyed cooperation with Turkey, as it has a customs union with Ankara, Turkey participates in EU research and education programmes and Turkish forces are serving as part of the EU's peacekeeping mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The commission last month adopted guidelines on which accession negotiations with Turkey will be based - the so called 'framework for negotiations'.

The document, which now has to be approved by member states, confirms that the goal of the accession talks remains full membership of the EU for Turkey.

But it also underlines that the negotiations are "an open-ended process".

And if Turkey starts EU talks on 3 October as planned, the process is set to go on for no less than ten years.

Straw calls for "digestion" pause

Also speaking before MEPs at the foreign affairs committee yesterday, UK foreign secretary Jack Straw called for a "digestion pause" before the EU has the "capability and capacity" to expand further.

However, Mr Straw, whose country holds the rotating six-month EU presidency since 1 July, reiterated that the 25-member bloc had to respect its commitments to existing applicants.

"We've made commitments to Turkey, we've made commitments to Croatia, my view is that we have to follow those commitments through", he said.

The foreign secretary also made it clear that he opposed the idea of privileged partnership, saying that the negotiations should lead to full membership and "not to some intermediate status".

The UK is one of the biggest supporters of EU expansion, including Turkey.

"Let us embrace them [Turkey] instead of rejecting them", Mr Straw said, calling for recognition of the progress Ankara had achieved so far.