Brussels, 08/03/2005 (Agence Europe) - After severe criticism of the brutal repression of a demonstration on Sunday, European Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn voiced another kind of criticism against Ankara on Tuesday, on the subject of EU/Turkey customs union. “Despite the overall success of the Customs Union which is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, there are still unfortunately many unfulfilled commitments by the Turkish side, which is unacceptable”, he said, speaking to a business group. “There are evident breaches of the Customs Union Agreement as regards e.g. intellectual property rights in pharmaceuticals and requirements to obtain import licenses in telecommunications”, he said. He also slammed the ban on European beef and restrictions on textiles before driving home the fact that “such measures are frankly hard to understand from a candidate country which is about to open accession negotiations”.
The EU is adamant about gaining extension of the customs union agreement to the ten new Member States including Cyprus as “soon as possible”, as Jean-Claude Juncker put it. The signing of the protocol enlarging the agreement is a condition for opening negotiations on 3 October. Mr Rehn had hoped the protocol would be initialled by Turkey before the EU Troika's arrival in Ankara on Monday and Tuesday, which was not the case. On Tuesday, he said: “I trust that Turkey will fulfil its commitment by signing the protocol in good time”.
Commissioner Rehn, Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn and British European Affairs Minister Denis McShane (future presidency) met Turkey's Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on Monday together with Foreign Minister Abdullah Gül. Jean Asselborn stressed the importance of keeping the rate of reform intact. He said the European delegation had pointed out that it expected further progress in favour of non-Muslim minorities as well as “zero tolerance” of torture, and the return of displaced persons.