Turkey warned of ‘long path’ for EU entry

ANKARA—European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso urged Turkey on Thursday to speed up democracy reforms, saying that “there is a long way to go” before it catches up with membership criteria.
Barroso, accompanied by Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn, was visiting Ankara amid simmering political tensions that pose a new threat to the country’s struggling membership bid. “It is important to keep the path of reform,” he told reporters after talks with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. “There is still a long way to go... a lot of work to do.”
He urged Ankara to focus on improving freedom of speech, the rights of women, trade unions and religious and ethnic minorities. Barroso said he was confident that two new policy areas would be opened for negotiations with Turkey by July, bringing the total to eight out of 35 chapters that candidates are required to complete.
With his government under fire for slackening its EU reform drive, Erdogan reassured that Ankara was “putting all its efforts and determination” behind the country’s accession bid. “Our common objective is membership and we cannot accept any other alternative,” he said, referring to opposition by EU countries such as France and Germany, who advocate special partnership rather than full accession for the mainly Muslim nation.
A pending court case threatens Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) with closure on charges that it is seeking to undermine Turkey’s secular order and replace it with an Islamist regime. The case “is not common, to say the least, in a normal, stable and democratic country,” Barroso said, urging the verdict, expected to take up at least six months, should be compatible with European standards.
Rehn has earlier signalled that Turkey’s accession talks could be derailed if the AKP is banned. AKP supporters see the court case as a fresh attack by hardline secularists, whose prominent members include senior judges, the military and some academics, after the party’s re-election for a second term in July with almost 47 percent of the vote.
The AKP has disowned its roots in a now-banned Islamist movement and pledged commitment to democracy, launching a series of reforms that led to the start of Turkey’s EU accession talks in 2005.
But critics argue that the AKP aims to advance its Islamist ambitions under the guise of improving religious freedoms in line with EU norms, and point to the abolition of a ban on the Islamic headscarf in universities and the prohibition of alcohol in restaurants run by AKP municipalities.
Many Turks are frustrated with what they see as inadequate EU support for the country’s much-cherished secular system. Keen to mend its pro-EU credibility, the government submitted to parliament this week a proposal to amend a law the EU has denounced as a threat to freedom of speech in Turkey.—Agencies