EU: The EU will not set Turkey any fresh conditions in order to gain a date to start entry talks with the bloc, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Mr Günter Verheugen, said yesterday.
"There will be no new conditions, of course," Mr Verheugen told reporters during a final fact-finding trip to Turkey before a European Commission progress report on the country's entry bid, due on October 6th.
That report, which the Commission confirmed yesterday would be published, will form the basis of a decision in December by EU leaders on whether to start entry talks, delayed for years by concerns over Turkey's human rights record. If begun, negotiations are expected to last a decade.
"What we have to do is very clear. We have to make a judgment on whether the political criteria are met or not, and these criteria are very well-defined," he said, adding that Turkey would be assessed in exactly the same way as any other candidate country.
Turkey has approved a broad raft of political and legal reforms in its drive to persuade the EU to open entry talks. These include a crackdown on torture, more cultural rights for its large Kurdish minority and curbs on the power of its military.
Despite the positive tone of his comments, Mr Verheugen made clear that Turkey faced a hard slog before it became a full EU member.
"Much of the work is still in front of you, and Prime Minister \ Erdogan and Foreign Minister \ Gul share my view... It is obvious the process enjoys support here \ the real work will begin after the decision of the commission and the council [of EU leaders\]," he said. Mr Verheugen repeated his concerns about implementation of the reforms, which critics say have not been fully applied on the ground, but made clear Turkey still had time to put them into practice.