Turkey debate will define Europe and Europeans for the 21st century

12.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 6th Oct 2004

Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) leader Graham Watson welcomed the European Commission's favourable report on Turkey's readiness for EU membership negotiations today by urging that it be the basis for an objective decision on opening membership negotiations. Speaking at an open meeting of the European Parliament's Conference of Presidents, Mr Watson said: "for over forty years, Turkey has been waiting for this moment."

Mr Watson said that the ALDE welcomed the Commission report and expected European governments to treat Turkey's candidacy objectively, stressing that "accession negotiations should not be seen as an automatic guarantee of accession."

Mr Watson emphasised the importance of continued reform in Turkey:

"It is not today's Turkey that may one day join the European Union. Turkey faces at least a decade of further reform. The opening of membership talks would strengthen the position of reformist Turkish governments like that of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has achieved more in the last two years than previous governments achieved in forty."

Mr Watson said that there were some both in the ALDE and in Europe as a whole who would not welcome the Commission's recommendations, and that Europe now needed a "profound debate" on what it means to be "Europeans in the 21st century":

"Its outcome and the manner in which it is conducted will tell us as much about ourselves as Europeans in the 21st century as it will inform us about Turkey. Those whose only argument for closing the door on Turkey is an argument about Islam's place in a supposedly Christian Europe should think again, and look again at the continent we live in. Where in that argument are the twenty million Muslims who are already Europeans? Where does that characterisation of European culture leave our fine words about the universality of our values, and the importance of avoiding a clash of civilisations?"

Mr Watson also argued that the possibility of Turkish membership of the EU would require internal reform in the European Union. "The prospect of Turkish membership would force the European Union to reform and strengthen its own lumbering institutions. For Liberals and Democrats it is clear that only a consolidated and coherent European Union, renewed by a ratified European Constitution, will be able to welcome Turkey", he said.