Brussels, 15/11/2002 (Agence Europe) - Many stances and much speculation - especially within the EPP family - on a possible signal from the European Council of Copenhagen on the date for beginning accession negotiations with Turkey have led the president of the European People's Party, Wilfried Martens to call for caution. In a declaration, he states, without predicting the EPP's stance: "this is a very delicate and central issue which will be intensively discussed by our government and party leaders at our EPP Summit in Copenhagen on 12 December".
Meanwhile the OVP member Othmar Karas MEP announced that at the next EP plenary, the EPP-ED Group would present a proposal on the status of special partnership for Turkey. Turkey's membership of the EU is not close at hand, and the Copenhagen criteria are not a "bazaar in which each may choose what suits them", said the Austrian deputy, while accusing many European leaders of lack of sincerity towards Ankara. We cannot continue, one year to the next, making promises to this important country, he said. The CDU member Renate Sommer MEP, for her part, took advantage of the opportunity to attack Gerhard Schroeder for having declared that in Copenhagen they would be able to give Ankara a date. She accuses the German Chancellor of trying to iron out his recent difficulties with the United States by backing Turkey's candidacy.