Franse senaat wil besluit Assemblée Nationale over referendum lidmaatschap Turkije schrappen (en)
The French Senate's foreign affairs and defence committee on Wednesday (11 June) moved to scrap a clause introduced by parliamentarians in May that would have made it compulsory to hold a referendum on EU membership of large countries, in particular Turkey.
The committee said that the provision introduced by the National Assembly as an amendment to a constitutional reform package "could appear to be directed against a friendly state and ally of France, that is Turkey," and is "likely to cause grave harm to diplomatic relations between France and this country."
The whole Senate will start debating the wider constitutional reform text on 17 June.
According to French press reports, it may eventually reject the referendum clause, as unlike the deputies, the majority of Senators belonging to the biggest political group - the centre-right UMP party - oppose it.
The final decision will be taken in July when the upper and lower houses gather for a congress meeting. The text has to be agreed by a three-fifths majority.
The clause stating that holding a referendum would be obligatory to approve the EU accession of any country whose population surpasses five percent of the EU population (about 500 million people) was approved by French MPs on 29 May.
The move is seen as targeting Turkey in particular - with France being one of the staunchest opponents to its EU bid - and was criticised in Ankara for being "discriminatory."
Last week, France's Europe minister Jean-Pierre Jouyet also said that introducing such a measure in the constitution would be an "insult" to Turkey.
"Parliament is sovereign and it does what it wants, but by taking the risk of this amendment, we are taking the risk of a more serious rift than we think with Turkey," in particular in terms of trade, he told AFP news agency.
The government had previously approved scrapping a clause on obligatory referendums - to be held on every EU enlargement after Croatia - altogether, leaving it to the French president to decide on the method of ratification of a country's EU membership.