Tag: enlargement

  • The EU enlargement and Turkey

    The EU enlargement and Turkey

    Question from Onur in Turkey: “Hello my name is Onur. With the economic crisis the process of EU enlargement has slowed. Will the EU continue to accept new members in the future? What consequences could this have for Turkey?”

    Answer by Professor Dr. Beril Dedeoğlu, teacher and researcher in the Department of International Relations at the University of Galatasaray:

    “I think that the process of EU enlargement has slowed down. I mean we cannot say the last major enlargement has been completely assimilated. Besides that, there is the economic crisis. That is why for the last two to three years no one has really been talking about enlargement.

    “But the EU is faced with a problem: if it does not expand, especially with a candidate like Turkey, it does not know what to do and or how to reconsider its relationship with the latter. I mean, the EU does not want to lose Turkey, but does not accept it either.

    “In response, the Nordic EU members and especially Britain are trying to propose a roadmap for candidature by stages. It would mean the EU and Turkey sitting down together to readjust the conditions and the application process, creating a new path. This idea is not a formula to prevent the accession of Turkey.

    “It is not like Nicolas Sarkozy’s idea, which is exclusive cooperation. Instead this model is to be beneficial for both sides. That is to say that Turkey becomes a member only for those community benefits which she accepts. And is represented in the institutions involved in those community benefits in question.

    “So Turkey would become a member slowly. And if it did not accede to certain benefits it should not be forced. So we want to go towards a Union with a new membership model which is more flexible. And this could be a solution for the EU today.

    “But especially Germany – which will not get back as much as it contributes – I don’t think it is moving in this direction. I don’t think Germany is very positive about this model. France and Germany consider that the process of Turkey’s accession will be long enough.

    “But if the given time exceeds 2023, we will face the problem of loss of the candidate, as the UK says.”

    via The EU enlargement and Turkey | euronews, u talk.

  • EU – Enlargement – Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community – European Commission

    EU – Enlargement – Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community – European Commission

    Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community

    Background

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    Cyprus joined the EU on 1 May 2004 as a de facto divided island. The EU fully supports the current negotiations (under the auspices of the UN) between the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities which aim to reach a comprehensive settlement leading to the re-unification of the island and establish a bi-zonal, bi-communal federation in which the communities would enjoy political equality. Such a settlement is urgently needed to end a conflict that is now more than 40 years old.

    The EU will accommodate a Cyprus settlement that allows the country to play its full role as an EU member while respecting the EU’s basic founding principles – democracy, the rule of law and human rights.

    Pending a settlement, the European Commission has several specific responsibilities with regard to Cyprus, over and above its normal responsibilities toward a member country:

    closely following the negotiation process and providing political and technical support

    directly implementing the aid programme decided by EU member countries to help the Turkish Cypriots prepare for reunification.

    regularly reporting on the implementation of the Green Line Regulation.

    To meet these responsibilities, the Commission’s Directorate-General for Enlargement has set up the Task Force for the Turkish Cypriot community. The task force runs a ProgrammeSupport Office (EUPSO) in the northern part of Nicosia, to act as a contact with the beneficiary community and help deliver the assistance.

    The Green Line

    The whole of Cyprus is EU territory. However, in the northern part of the island, where the Government of Cyprus does not exercise effective control, EU legislation is suspended in line with protocol 10 of the 2003 accession treaty.

    Since 1974 the “Green Line” separates the two parts of the island. The EU’s Green Line Regulation 866/2004 , sets out the terms under which persons and goods can cross this line, which is not an external border of the EU.

    The main practical effect is that the northern areas are outside the EU’s customs and fiscal territory – but this does not affect the personal rights of Turkish Cypriots as EU citizens. They are citizens of an EU country – the Republic of Cyprus – even if they live in a part of Cyprus not under government control.

    The situation will change once a Cyprus settlement enters into force and EU rules apply over the whole of the island.

    While many people move across the green line every day, trade across the line is limited (approximately €400,000 per month).

    Aid for the Turkish Cypriot community

    In 2006, the EU approved aid regulation 389/2006 to end the isolation of the Turkish Cypriot community and to help prepare for reunification. €259 million was allocated for a 5‑year programme to be implemented by the Commission (DG Enlargement).

    Programme objectives:

    promote social and economic development in the Turkish Cypriot community (particularly rural, human‑resources and regional development)

    develop and refurbish infrastructure (particularly energy, transport, environment, telecommunications and water supply)

    foster reconciliation, build confidence and support civil society

    bring the Turkish Cypriot community closer to the EU, through information and contacts between Turkish Cypriots and other EU citizens

    help the Turkish Cypriot community prepare for the implementation of EU law once a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus issue is agreed.

    From 2011 on, assistance has continued in the form of annual allocations of €28 million, to build on the results achieved and support the ongoing UN process.

    For more information on EU assistance to the Turkish Cypriot community, have a look at our brochure or go to the website of the EU InfoPoint.

    Brochure : ec.europa.eu/enlargement/pdf/key_documents/2012/20121128_assistance_to_tcc_brochure.pdf

    via EU – Enlargement – Aid Programme for the Turkish Cypriot Community – European Commission.

  • Bosnia and Herzegovina

    Bosnia and Herzegovina

    EU Enlargement

    This month’s focus: Bosnia and Herzegovina. Discover the country’s unique blend of cultures and religions, its vibrant spirit and its stunning and unspoiled natural scenery.

    via Sep 28, 2012 2:55pm.

  • Hidden treasures of Europe

    Hidden treasures of Europe

    Under the slogan ‘So similar, so different, so European’ this clip shows just how gorgeous and surprising Southeast Europe can be. Yes, the region is different and this is what makes it so vibrant, exciting and fascinating. But is it actually that different?

    One thing is certain; Southeast Europe has undergone tremendous changes in the last 20 years, let alone the last decade. On its path towards the European Union, the countries of the region have transformed their societies, implementing a series of thorough reforms. And anybody who is not familiar with Southeast Europe would probably be surprised to find out how many treasures it has been hiding; how much potential it heralds, and how much beauty there is to discover.

    Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Kosovo, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Turkey have all set course towards the European Union. Croatia has gone the furthest on the path towards the European Union; it is set to become the 28th Member State on 1 July 2013.

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  • EU and Turkey: talks languish, trade booms

    EU and Turkey: talks languish, trade booms

    (AP)  ISTANBUL — If a project has no deadline, is it really a project? What do you call a negotiation process in which the partners can’t talk about key issues? These are existential times for Turkey’s campaign to join the European Union — an ambitious vision that has become increasingly ambiguous.

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    (File/Associated Press) – FILE – In this Sept. 30, 2011 file photo, two landmarks, Sultan Ahmed Mosque, left, and Hagia Sophia, seen with the Bosporus, in Istanbul, Turkey. If a project has no deadline, is it really a project? What do you call a negotiation process in which the partners can’t talk about key issues? These are existential times for Turkey’s bid to join the European Union, an ambitious vision that has become increasingly ambiguous

    At a time when Greece’s survival in the eurozone is in jeopardy, it seems academic to debate a Turkish entry to European ranks that some Turks feel won’t happen in their lifetime, if at all. The more pressing question is whether the suitors should, as with any soured romance, call it quits or rekindle the flame.

    When accession talks began in 2005, the idea was that Turkey’s Muslim population would enrich the continent, culturally and economically, with Turkey itself destined to become a European-style democracy that could serve as an east-west bridge.

    More than six years later, doubt haunts hope.

    Economic troubles mean that Europe, where skepticism toward the Turkish bid was already building, has little energy to expand, while in Turkey reform efforts have slowed and the nation has sought to carve out a leadership role in the Middle East.

    “Without a deadline, without a final aim, there is no process,” said Cengiz Aktar, a political science professor at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul. “There can’t be an endless project.”

    Aktar, who attended the opening of an EU information office at the university on Friday, said it was “high time” for a reassessment of Turkey’s bid. He rejected the argument that EU-backed reform alone was enough, as though the journey was as good as the destination.

    The debate is in limbo partly because France and Germany, which have spoken against full Turkish membership, hold elections this year and 2013 respectively, and no bold initiatives are expected during the political campaign season.

    Even if those European heavyweights choose governments that are more sympathetic to Turkey’s candidacy, there is no sign of progress on a long-running dispute over EU member Cyprus, where the Greek-speaking south observes European rules and Turkey aids and occupies the isolated Turkish Cypriot north.

    Jean-Maurice Ripert, the EU’s new ambassador to Turkey, said more joint teams would be formed to lay technical groundwork for accession in case political conditions improve in the years ahead. He cited 40,000 student exchanges between Turkey and the EU last year, as well as EU plans to spend 800 million euros ($1.06 billion) this year on European development projects in Turkey.

    “Don’t think that nothing is happening,” he said in a meeting with foreign journalists. Since his January arrival, Ripert said, Turkish officials have assured him of their commitment to joining the European Union and voiced frustration with what they see as European opposition.

    In the past decade, Turkey has evolved into a regional powerhouse whose foreign policy remains in step with, but no longer defined by, its allies in NATO. Europe, meanwhile, was signaling fatigue with the idea of expansion well before it sank into recession.

    “In Brussels nowadays, you hear very little talk of enlargement,” said Sinan Ulgen, chairman of EDAM, a research center in Istanbul, and a visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe in the Belgian capital. “The main issue is essentially the economic crisis.”

    Numbers tell the story of the failure and potential of the Turkish bid, a legacy of Ottoman sultans who sought to upgrade their crumbling empire with European ideas, as well as Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the national founder who looked westward for inspiration.

    Half of the three-dozen subjects, or chapters, in membership negotiations are blocked. No new chapter has been opened since June 2010. However, Europe accounts for nearly half of Turkey’s foreign trade, as well as about 85 percent of foreign direct investment there.

    Turkey once highly anticipated the EU’s annual report on its membership progress. Interest has dwindled. European officials have expressed concern about minority rights, the right to a fair trial and freedom of expression, and Turkey has slammed Greek Cypriot vetoes of negotiations and a French bill that would criminalize denial that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks was a genocide.

    “The Europe that is afraid of speaking and arguing has nothing to give humanity,” Turkey’s Anadolu agency quoted Egeman Bagis, minister for EU affairs, as saying. “But the EU that we always emphasize being the most comprehensive peace project in the history of humanity has to be more courageous and liberal.”

    Andrew Gardner, an Amnesty International researcher, said EU-inspired legislative reform in Turkey had resulted in fewer reported cases of torture in police stations and prisons, but warned of a “regression of the human rights situation” in Turkey, particularly with regard to free expression. He also cited the negative impact of statements by EU leaders suggesting Turkey might not be accepted as a full member even if it fulfills human rights obligations.

    Suat Kiniklioglu, a former ruling party lawmaker and director of the Ankara-based Center for Strategic Communication, captured the ambiguity that shrouds Turkey’s EU campaign by offering two ways to look at it.

    The first: “The process is going nowhere and neither side is willing to admit it. This is heading toward a slow death.”

    The second, which he prefers: “The current impasse is actually not that bad as Europe needs time to sort out its own problems while Turkey will continue to grow and reform domestically at its own pace. The negotiations can be revived any time the two sides feel they are ready.”

    Ulgen, the visiting scholar in Brussels, said a “vicious circle” had developed, in which Turkey, once praised for its reform program, loses enthusiasm for a process that it believes is unfair, while Europe loses leverage over a process that some of its leaders treat with ambivalence.

    “We’re in standstill mode,” he said. According to Ulgen, Turkey and the European Union must eventually decide what kind of a relationship they want because: “We cannot continue to pretend anymore that the negotiations are continuing.”

  • Greek ‘wall’ is negative symbol, Turkey says

    Greek ‘wall’ is negative symbol, Turkey says

    By Andrew Rettman

    BRUSSELS – Turkey’s EU affairs minister has described the Greek anti-migrant fence as a symbol of division between the Union and outside countries.

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    Alluding to the Berlin wall, which used to separate western Europe from the Soviet bloc, Egemen Bagis told EUobserver on Wednesday (8 February): “It is not the time to talk about new walls in Europe – we need to talk about new bridges. Europe paid the cost of walls in the recent past and … everyone should work to build new bridges between different views, different cultures and different countries [instead].”

    He added that “Turkey is a bridge between east and west” and that the Islamic country’s EU membership would “symbolise an alliance of civilizations.”

    Greece this week began construction of a razor-wire barrier on its 13-km-long land border with Turkey.

    The fence is designed to deter the thousands of people from Asia and north Africa who come each month to seek asylum in the Union.

    The European Commission has described it as “pointless.” A Brussels-based NGO, the European Council on Refugees and Exiles, said it would be a “tragedy” if it keeps out people fleeing conflicts in Afghanistan and Syria.

    The Turkish minister’s remarks come in the context of prickly EU-Turkey relations – accession talks stopped over a year ago and the EU refuses to start negotiations on visa-free travel.

    “The citizens of Belize, Paraguay, the 190 million citizens of Brazil, or the citizens of Malaysia – with all due respect to them – can travel to the [EU passport-free] Schengen zone without a visa, but my citizens have to wait in line … it is not correct,” he noted.

    The EU says it will start visa talks only if Turkey signs a pact on taking back illegal migrants.

    Bagis said the visa talks must come first: “Turkey is ready to initial the readmission agreement if the EU Council authorises the commission to launch visa facilitation talks leading to visa liberalisation.”

    Greece is one of the main opponents of Turkey’s EU entry due to its occupation of northern Cyprus.

    Bagis described Greece and Turkey as being “very close friends.” But he highlighted that Turkey is enjoying an economic boom even as Greece faces ruin.

    “I was in Athens for a short holiday last month and I saw that Greece needs the active support of its friends as it struggles with the impact of the financial crisis. Turkey is among those countries that can help,” he noted.

    via EUobserver.com / Enlargement / Greek ‘wall’ is negative symbol, Turkey says.