Brussels, 06/11/2003 (Agence Europe) - Several German Christian Democrat MEPs intervened in Wednesday's debate on the Commission's progress report on Turkey. They thought the report was still too lenient. President of the EPP-ED group, Hans-Gert Pöttering again called on the European Commission to envisage an alternative to accession, such as a "privileged partnership" between the Union and Turkey. The President of the foreign affairs committee, Elmar Brok pointed out that despite progress on legislative matters, Turkey, in practice, did still not fulfil accession criteria. Werner Langen was unequivocal, "it's a mistake to give false hope to Turkey when what should be said is that there is no question of joining the EU in the foreseeable future. Only those how want the EU to fall into just being an improved free trade zone support Turkey's rapid accession". Hartmut Nassauer also criticised the Commission for being "too timid" in its criticism, even more so, given that Prime Minister Erdogan described this criticism as "pretexts". He was also unhappy with the information, according to which, Guy Verhofstad had said that a solution to the Cyprus problem was no longer needed for opening up accession negotiations with Ankara. German Green Elisabeth Schroedter asserted that the Turkish government had accepted criticism from the Europeans, which demonstrated that instruments such as "screening" and progress reports are a definite encouragement for reforms.
The European Commission points out in its "strategy paper" to be published before the end of October 2004, a recommendation indicating that Turkey respect the political criteria of Copenhagen, which will allow the European Council of December 2004 to reach a decision on beginning possible accession negotiations with Ankara (EUROPE yesterday p 5).
(In Washington, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli described the Commission report as constituting "a positive and objective assessment" of the efforts made by Turkey).