Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-06-04-Speech-3-171"
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"en.20030604.4.3-171"2
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"Mr President, it is important that we treat our Turkish friends with honesty and openness. Of course, treating them honestly and openly also includes the right to be critical and to point out deficiencies. We want to help Turkey on its path to true democracy and the rule of law. Turkey deserves fair treatment, and Mr Oostlander’s report is fair. It describes the remarkable progress that is being made, but also states in all honesty where reform is still badly needed.
In my opinion, what is important is that Turkey itself must want to make progress in terms of meeting the Copenhagen criteria. It must not work on these reforms primarily to appease the critics in the EU, to do us a favour, so to speak. Turkey must embed the necessary reforms deep within its own society, and the reforms must have an impact in real life. Constitutional amendments on paper, or new laws on paper, will not be enough on their own. Paper is patient! What is crucial is to implement reforms in people’s daily lives. So far, however, it is precisely this that we have yet to see. Mr Oostlander’s report describes the many shortcomings that exist in all areas. It notes that the conditions for opening accession negotiations have not yet been met at the present time, and calls upon the Council to take a clear and consistent position at last. The Copenhagen criteria – and this must be stressed over and over again – are not negotiable. This applies equally to all candidate countries, and so it also applies to Turkey. Turkey must also be fair here for once towards the EU and acknowledge this fact. Turkey must stop passing the buck to the EU and trying to exert pressure. It was not us who promised the Turkish people rapid accession within a few years; Turkish politics itself bears sole responsibility for this. If Turkish politics now finds itself having to provide explanations and the population is becoming impatient, it is a problem of Turkey’s own making that must be resolved in Turkey and not by the EU by softening the accession criteria.
What Turkey can expect from us – and it really can – is honesty, openness, seriousness and fairness."@en1
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