MEPs give green light to Turkey EU talks

11.09.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Fri 30th Sep 2005

Sarah meets Turkish gay rights campaigners Kursad Kahramanoglu and Sedef Cakmak in the European Parliament

London's Liberal Democrat MEP Baroness Sarah Ludford has welcomed the 2 to 1 vote by the European Parliament in favour of opening EU accession talks with Turkey.

She expressed disappointment at the "short-sighted and unhelpful" move whereby a majority of Euro-MPs simultaneously managed to get postponement of a vote on approval of the "Ankara Protocol". This extends Turkey's customs union to the ten new member states including Cyprus, and has already been signed by the Turkish government. The dispute is over Turkey's formal recognition of the (Greek) Republic of Cyprus.

Sarah Ludford said:

"It would be naïve to think that the negotiations will be plain sailing, and Turkey still has a long way to go in implementing human rights reforms. Just this week I met Turkish gay rights campaigners who say Turkey is 30 years behind Britain in recognition of equality."

"But Turkey in the EU would be beneficial: boosting our economy with its youthful dynamic population, showing Europe is not a 'Christian club' and that Islamic and Western cultures can mix peacefully, helping to make Muslim EU citizens fully integrated, and reinforcing the credibility of the EU in the world."

Sarah Ludford warned against allowing Austria this weekend to succeed in making the EU, as a quid pro quo for Turkey, cave in on its insistence that Croatia deliver suspected war criminal Ante Gotivina before its own EU talks could begin. She said:

"This would be a betrayal of Balkan victims and send the wrong signal to Serbia about its own need to deliver Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadic. Croatia's failure to deliver Gotivina shows the existence of a shadowy 'state within a state'."