Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-13-Speech-1-067"
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"en.20041213.10.1-067"2
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".
Mr President, in the major controversies surrounding the opening of negotiations about Turkey’s accession to the European Union, frankness is called for. It is precisely that praiseworthy attitude that our rapporteur, Mr Eurlings, exemplifies. Last Saturday, he told the Dutch press in plain terms about his concern at the complaints lodged by Prime Minister Erdogan about Brussels. The Turkish Prime Minister and the President of the Turkish Parliament very much create the impression that their country already complies with the political criteria for accession. To sum up, Brussels is apparently asking too much of Ankara on this crucial subject.
Nothing is further from the truth, though. That bodes well for the Council and Commission if the unexpected decision is taken this week to open negotiations with lamenting Prime Minister Erdogan. According to the rapporteur’s findings, Paragraph 4 of the report can in any event be duly deleted. After all, that paragraph alludes in jubilant terms to the persistently strong motivation and political willingness of the Turkish Government and the Turkish Parliament to grow towards the European Union.
I on my part have also been very frank to the rapporteur about the fundamental lack of religious freedom in Turkey. Words fail me, in fact, for the frankly small-minded attitude of the Turkish authorities towards various minuscule Christian minorities on their territory. Suffice to look at the
of the past few weeks, but also Friday’s
. Although in this light, I very much value the critical stance adopted by Mr Eurlings in this basic violation of human rights, I believe that he is still concerning himself too much with fighting the symptoms. That is why I would once again urge him to back my amendment in which the Council and the Commission are asked to demand from the Turkish authorities, in line with the political criteria of Copenhagen, legal personality for the Christian churches with immediate effect and the immediate abolition of the Presidium for Religious Affairs. This latter request does, in fact, do away with another intractable political myth, namely that of the secular Turkish State, with the discrimination against non-Sunnites that this entails.
Under the category of non-Sunnites, there is also the considerable minority of Alevites. Along with the large Kurdish community, they do not wish to be considered minorities but as an integral part of the Turkish Republic, and, indeed, as its co-founders. Europe does well to keep well away from explosive Turkish political issues such as those, on pain of its own implosion."@en1
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