Turkije hoopt volgende stap te zetten in EU-toetreding (en)
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – Turkey is hoping to next week open a new chapter of its accession talks with the EU, the country's European affairs minister said on Thursday (25 June), reiterating that Ankara is aiming for full membership of the bloc.
The chapter on taxation will "hopefully be opened on 30 June, the last day of the Czech EU presidency," during an EU-Turkey accession conference, Egemen Bagis said at an event organised by the Brussels-based European Policy Centre think-tank.
Turkey was granted EU candidate status in 1999 and started accession negotiations with the bloc in October 2005. If opened, the taxation chapter will be the 11th of Turkey's 35-chapter accession package to be opened so far, with just one successfully closed.
Mr Bagis stressed that Ankara had done a lot in the last six months to boost EU-related reform and announced that the Turkish parliament had just passed a law to strengthen the country's EU affairs secretariat.
"The law that governs the function of the EU secretariat in Turkey was amended last night because there was a need to empower the institution, to bring more flexibility, more budget and more personnel," Mr Bagis said, stressing that 235 of the 237 parliamentarians had voted in favour of the move.
The new law "triples the number of people who are working on the issue. Now our total capacity will exceed 300."
"It's going to affect the negotiations I think in a very positive manner," the minister stressed.
Mr Bagis became Turkey's first EU affairs minister in January this year, just before Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan i's first visit to Brussels in four years.
Mr Erdogan went to Brussels on where met EU commission president Jose Manuel Barroso. Meanwhile Mr Bagis and Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu met EU enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn i.
‘Narrow-minded' politicians
The visits came just weeks after the European elections of 4-7 June which saw conservative parties triumph at European level and in most individual member states. In several countries, opposition to Turkish EU membership was an important element of the electoral campaign.
In the aftermath of the elections, Ankara had expressed concern and called on the EU to respect its commitments to Turkey.
On Thursday, Mr Bagis again condemned the use of anti-Turkish membership rhetoric in the election campaign.
"People tend to forget that almost six million Turks already live and mostly vote in EU member countries… That's more than the total population of many EU member countries," he said.
The minister also reaffirmed that Turkey's goal remained full membership of the EU and firmly rejected the option of "privileged partnership" mulled over by some member states, including France, Germany and Austria.
"We will either be a full [EU] member or not [at all]," Mr Bagis said.
The concept of "privileged partnership" has no legal foundation and is just a "philosophical superficial idea… that some politicians are dancing around."