TURKEY: Fresh doubts emerged yesterday about Turkey's hopes of starting accession talks with the European Union next year, as the incoming Enlargement Commissioner warned that a Turkish proposal to ban adultery could be an obstacle to membership, writes Denis Staunton, European Correspondent
Mr Olli Rehn, who succeeds Mr Günther Verheugen in November, urged Ankara to reconsider the draft law, which has the support of Turkey's prime minister, Mr Tayyip Erdogan.
"This legislation has generally been considered as going against the European judicial practice. It will certainly become an obstacle if Turkey will actively pursue it," Mr Rehn said.
A Commission report on Turkey next month is expected to recommend an early start to accession negotiations, but two commissioners have made plain their opposition this week.
The Agriculture Commissioner, Mr Franz Fischler, has written a nine-page letter to his fellow commissioners, warning of the danger to the European project of admitting what he describes as "basically an Asian Minor and Middle Eastern country".
Earlier this week, the Internal Market Commissioner, Mr Frits Bolkestein, said the EU could "implode" if it attempted to apply its current agricultural and regional policies to Turkey.
In his letter, Mr Fischler estimates that applying the Common Agricultural Policy to Turkey would be more expensive than the total cost of extending it to the 10 member-states that joined the EU this year.
He argues that Turkey is too distinct culturally to fit easily into the EU and that the role of religion remains problematic.
"Despite Ataturk's legacy, secularism is not engrained in Turkish culture, Islam enjoys public preference, and secularism has to be and will continue to have to be (imperfectly) enforced. While there is formal freedom of religion, there are implementation difficulties and lack of representation on religious minorities in the state apparatus," he said.
Mr Fischler said that Turkey's lack of "social dialogue", with only 5 per cent of workers represented by a trade union, and great inequality between the sexes represented further obstacles in the way of the country's integration into the EU.
He suggested that, despite progress on human rights, Turkey's record remains unacceptable by European standards.
Mr Fischler notes that Britain and the US are among the loudest advocates of Turkish entry into the EU and questions the motives behind their support.
"Their concern is the preservation of the Western alliance and the dual membership - as far as possible - of the EU and NATO with a view to preserving NATO's relevance. Whether Turkey's accession weakens the Union's political project is not their primary concern, and may even be on their wish list," Mr Fischler said.
EU leaders will decide in December if Turkey is ready to start accession talks without delay, a decision that will be influenced by the Commission's report.
Senior German government sources said this week that offering Turkey the prospect of EU membership had become more urgent since the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001. The interior minister, Mr Otto Schily, warned that, if it does not join the EU, "maybe Turkey will be an Islamic country like Iran and start building a nuclear capacity".
Austria's finance minister, Mr Karl-Heinz Grasser, said yesterday: "I think Turkey's membership of the EU would not be helpful. I am amazed that in the debate going on in Europe that practically no one has the courage to say that openly."
Reuters adds: A Turkish court sentenced a policeman to more than four years in jail yesterday for involvement in the fatal torture of a student 13 years ago in a human rights case closely followed by the EU.
The policeman tortured Birtan Altunbas, who died in custody in 1991. He is the fifth officer to be sentenced in the case.