Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-12-13-Speech-1-071"
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"en.20041213.10.1-071"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, I should like to start by saluting Mr Eurlings and thanking him for the high quality of his report and the spirit of openness that he showed throughout the process of compiling it.
The report has been substantially modified by the Committee on Foreign Affairs, but as it now stands here in the plenary, it recommends opening accession negotiations with Turkey without undue delay, and recalls that the objective of these negotiations can only be accession and nothing else. These two points are in line with what the majority of my group wants. That is why a large number of us in the Socialist Group will be voting in favour of it, unless one of these points is called into question by an amendment adopted in the sitting. In any case, it would send a very strong message to Turkey if this report were to be adopted by a substantial majority.
I should like, Mr President and Mr Eurlings, speaking in a personal capacity, to express two regrets about the nature of the debates that we have just held. The first concerns the tone of our spoken and written comments. The twentieth century was a very violent one for Turkey. The evidence of this is plain to see: in Cyprus, in its relations with the Armenian and Kurdish peoples and also in the prominent role played by the army and the police in the internal socio-political organisation of the country, where they remain all-powerful. We are all aware of this. In the same way, many nations that are now members of the Union have also experienced totalitarian, fascist or communist governments or governments guilty of collaborating with an occupying power. Building the Union is a process of reconciliation with all of this. The prime reason for opening accession negotiations with any country is to set such a process in motion, and this will only succeed if there is a minimum of confidence in the effectiveness of this process both within the Union and in the candidate country itself. In fact, these insistent, sometimes aggressive and often repeated reminders of some of the blackest events in recent Turkish history are inspired more by suspicion and hostility than a desire to start a process of democratic consolidation and reconciliation between all peoples on the basis of an established historical reality. That is enough: we have gone too far.
When France and Germany began their process of reconciliation by building the Community, they were very careful not to highlight quite so harshly all of the grounds that they might still have had for conflict with each other. In the same way, Spain, Portugal and Greece also joined us after black periods of fascism. I do not remember our requirements for tidying up penal codes and changing the attitudes of the police being quite as harshly worded as they are today. I only hope that Turkey does not see this as a cause for tension and think that any offence is intended, as this is not the case. But we are taking a risk.
My second regret relates to the subjects that we have debated. Basically, we have only discussed our own internal or bilateral affairs and the clear, tricky and obvious difficulties, the undeniable difficulties presented by this accession. We have hardly mentioned the future and the largely positive possibilities opened up by the prospect of this accession. As a result, these aspects are not adequately reflected in the report. The enlargement of our market to encompass a market of 70 million consumers, in a country where the economy has been growing very rapidly for the last six years, will strengthen the Union considerably, and let us not forget that growth in Turkey will help to alleviate substantially the concerns that some of our nations have about migratory movements. But above all, by opening up to a country that is secular but where the majority religion is Islam, the Union would make a major contribution to peace and mutual understanding between peoples in these times of increasing tension, aggravated mistrust and conflict between Muslim and Christian countries. This contribution, over and above its symbolic significance, is of major strategic importance. That is the reason for our support. It would have merited greater emphasis."@en1
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