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Europe
Austria raises the heat on Turkey EU entry
2005-09-30
BRUSSELS - Austria set out impossible tough terms on Thursday for allowing the European Union to open accession talks with Turkey next week while EU ambassadors met to seek elusive agreement on a negotiating mandate.

In a barrage of newspaper interviews Chancellor Wolfgang Schuessel demanded Ankara be offered an explicit alternative to full membership -- something Turkey vehemently rejects -- and said the EU also should open talks with Croatia immediately.

Diplomats said there was scant chance of envoys clinching a deal in light of Austria’s stance, and EU president Britain was poised to call an emergency foreign ministers’ meeting in Luxembourg on Sunday evening, hours before the Turkey talks are due to start on Monday. “It looks as if this will go down to the wire on Sunday night,” one diplomat said.

Schuessel, whose conservative Austrian People’s Party is fighting to avert defeat in regional elections in the province of Styria on Sunday, said European politicians should learn from the failed EU constitution votes in France and the Netherlands. “Democracy means you have to listen to the demos.”
What an odd concept for Europe.
“If Turkey does not fulfil the criteria, then Turkey should be bound in Europe by the strongest possible bond and if the union can’t absorb Turkey, then we are also looking for the strongest possible alternative bond,” he said. That wording was almost identical to the draft negotiating mandate proposed by the executive European Commission, but Schuessel said he wanted a more precise formula.

His comments reflected growing public opposition in western Europe to admitting the vast, poor, overwhelmingly Muslim country on the edge of Europe and the Middle East. Polls show 80 percent of his electorate opposed to Turkish entry.

Schuessel’s stance has isolated him in the 25-nation bloc, since EU leaders promised unanimously last December to open negotiations with Turkey on Oct. 3 if it met two key conditions which it has since fulfilled.

“It is blasphemy in the church of the European Union to go back on European Council (summit) conclusions,” one senior EU diplomat said.
'blasphemy'? What an odd word for a continent of unbelievers to use.
Austria takes over the EU presidency from Britain in January and could also jeopardise its relations with the United States, which strongly supports Turkey’s accession process.

Schuessel also linked the start of Turkey talks to an agreement to begin negotiations with Croatia, which have been stalled by Zagreb’s failure to cooperate with a U.N. tribunal in the hunt for fugitive war crimes suspect Ante Gotovina. “If we trust Turkey to make further progress, we should trust Croatia too ... It is in Europe’s best interest to start negotiations with Croatia immediately,” Schuessel told the Financial Times newspaper. “It is not fair to leave Croatia in an eternal waiting room. I don’t understand the logic at all,” he added.
Posted by:Steve White

#6  Ima calling Vlad.
Posted by: Red Dog   2005-09-30 16:03  

#5  But how can islam finally overwhelm Christian Europe if Turkey throws in with the ME. Deep down this is why Turkey is so adamant about full membership. What a win for allah to have millions of turkish immigrants free and unrestricted access to Europe.

The Ottoman Empire is still a recent memory. I dont think it so far fetched that Turkey's islamist Govt still holds that dream in the wings.
Posted by: peggy   2005-09-30 14:44  

#4  I wonder how ridiculous things are going to have to get before the Turks realize that instead of being second class citizens in the EU, they could, with Iraq, dominate a Middle East Common Market?

Set up with rules that both Turkey and Iraq would like: 1) You must be a democracy; 2) You must be a secular democracy; and 3) You must remain a secular democracy.

Such a situation could cause an overnight democratic-secular domino theory in the Middle East. Think how powerful each additional nation could make a MECM.

Ironic, I supposed, that after all was said and done, it would result in something approaching the Caliphate, in scope. But an economic Caliphate, *not* a religious one.
Posted by: Anonymoose   2005-09-30 12:36  

#3  The olde Seperate but Equal deal. That'll work.
Posted by: Shipman   2005-09-30 07:26  

#2  The Austrians seem to have lingering memories of their last little dust-up with the Turks in 1683.
Posted by: jolly roger   2005-09-30 06:38  

#1  The last condition: reconverting to Eastern Orthodox and restoring the church seat in Constantinople, is gonna be a toughie.
Posted by: ed   2005-09-30 06:21  

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