Examination of Witness (Questions 49 -
59)
TUESDAY 12 FEBRUARY 2002
MR MICHAEL
LEIGH
Chairman
49. Mr Leigh, we welcome you to help us in our
inquiry into Turkey, particularly in its relations with the European
Union. Let us begin in relation to the overall position. We know
that there is likely to be a big bang in respect of a number of
the applicant countries, perhaps in 2003-04, so that they will
be ready for the elections to the European Parliament at that
time. We know that two of the countries, Bulgaria and Romania,
accept that they will not be in the first wave but rather hope
that they will be ready and acceptable by some two or three years
after that, 2007-2008, and those dates presumably have been pencilled
in by the Commission. Have any dates been pencilled in in respect
of Turkey?
(Mr Leigh) Turkey would like a date to
be fixed and has on numerous occasions requested that a date be
fixed. Our reply is that the first step is for Turkey to satisfy
the political criteria for membership. We always point out that
these political criteria, decided in Copenhagen in 1993, have
been applied equally to all candidates. This is something which
Turkey has always sought, to be treated on the same basis as other
candidates. We remind Turkey that in the past, in the case of
Slovakia, for example, we did not fix a date or open negotiations
because the political criteria had not been satisfied yet. Therefore,
until now we have not been in a position to fix a date. We have
rather insisted on the need to satisfy the political criteria,
which we are monitoring closely, together with Turkey, but we
know that Turkey has the ambition that this year a date should
be fixed and would like to see that decided, perhaps at the Seville
European Council, which I think is most unlikely, or in any event
at the Copenhagen European Council at the end of the year. But
on our side we have made no commitments at all in that respect.
50. Are you saying that in no circumstances,
unless and until the political criterion has been satisfied, will
a date be set?
(Mr Leigh) It is hard for me to speak on behalf of
the 15 Member States, but this would be the practice until now.
Of course we do not know what the atmosphere will be at the end
of the year. If Turkey were to make steady progress during the
course of this year towards satisfying the political criteria,
if there were to be positive developments in other areas, under
the enhanced political dialogue of the Cyprus question, border
disputes, improvement of relations with neighbouring countries
and so on, there might be a more positive climate at the end of
the year—and, as we noted, the conclusions of the Laeken
European Council were already more forthcoming than any previous
European Council in this respect. Therefore it is very hard for
me to prejudge what the Member States might decide at Copenhagen
at the end of the year, but I think the former position has to
remain, that it is necessary first to satisfy the political criteria.
51. It is the working assumption that once the
political criteria have been satisfied, there will be no remaining
barrier. Because there have been suspicions in the past that there
is among some Member States a vision of a re-creation, if you
like, of a Holy Roman Empire; that an Islamic state, by its nature,
could not be acceptable within that revived Holy Roman Empire.
Is that still a sentiment amongst some nations?
(Mr Leigh) That has certainly always been a fear in
some Turkish minds, that the European Union was not sincere in
its commitment to Turkey, possibly for reasons of the sort that
you are mentioning. However, I think our Heads of State and Government,
the European Parliament, all official bodies of the European Union
have always made absolutely clear that the European Union is based
on common values, common principles and not on a particular culture
or a particular religion.
52. It is a fear, to be fair, which has been
fuelled by statements made by certain leading European Christian
Democrat statesmen.
(Mr Leigh) One of the things that we always point
out to the Turks is that when you live in a democracy, whether
in the European Union or in Turkey itself, you have to expect
all currents of opinion to be represented, including the one to
which you are referring—and it is absolutely beyond doubt
that there are those in the European Union who share the sentiments
to which you have referred. But I always draw the Turks' attention
to the official position taken by our Heads of State of Government,
the European Parliament, which in 1997, after a certain Christian
Democrat meeting, was unmistakable in the resolution that it adopted
along the lines that I have just mentioned. So I think one should
pay more attention to the official position than to currents of
public opinion which inevitably exist.
53. How then do you answer this, that some claim
that Helsinki rather took the Commission by surprise and that
there has not been a sufficient response in terms of building
up staff resources under you.
(Mr Leigh) As to Helsinki taking us by surprise, I
would point out that the Commission was intimately involved in
the negotiations at Helsinki, and Mr Verheugen, the Commissioner,
together with Mr Solana, made a mission to Ankara in the middle
of the proceedings of the Helsinki European Council to explain
the position to the Turks. So the Commission has been intimately
involved in this from the very beginning. As to the Commission's
capacity to handle EU-Turkey relations, since then the Turkey
team, for which I am responsible, in the Commission has been considerably
enlarged in terms of staff resources (particularly well trained
people have been selected, there is a high competence in economic
matters, even in knowledge of Turkish language and so on) and
I think the Commission is quite well able to handle our end of
EU-Turkey relations.
54. How many officials do you have serving under
you?
(Mr Leigh) I have in the Turkey team itself some 18
officials.
55. How does that compare, for example, with
the Romanian team?
(Mr Leigh) It is about the same size as the Romanian
team.
Ms Stuart
56. May I take you a bit further on, to Turkey's
readiness to become a candidate country. I thought it was very
interesting that Turkey is given a place in the Convention even
though it is not an applicant country in the strict sense. Nevertheless
there is a real sense that Turkey is being asked to perform things
which countries like Bulgaria and Romania are not. You yourself
made reference to steady progress. Could you be a little bit more
specific—let us say, if Turkey came to you and said, "Name
me three things which in the next 12 months we would like to see
happen."
(Mr Leigh) You know we do have an accession partnership
with Turkey which was approved by the Member States in March of
last year. There we set out, under each of the Copenhagen criteria,
priorities: short-term and medium-term priorities. The most important
in the political sphere, first of all, are those covered by enhanced
political dialogue; ie, improvement of relations with neighbouring
States, in particular Greece; Turkey's support for the efforts
of the United Nations Secretary General to solve the Cyprus problem;
and, within Turkey, improvements in the human rights' situation,
particularly concerning freedom of association, freedom of expression.
Other matters referred to concern the death penalty, civilian
control of the military, education and such matters. I would say
these are the top items, the priorities on which we asked Turkey
to focus under the political criteria for membership.
57. And these are things which Turkey could
possibly deliver in that short time.
(Mr Leigh) A really striking feature is that, since
the accession partnership was drawn up Turkey has responded with
its own National Programme for the Adoption of the Acquis in which
it takes upon itself to adopt various pieces of legislation to
meet these priorities, and the most striking developments since
the adoption of this document have been the constitution amendments,
which were adopted in Turkey towards the end of last year, which
do aim to expand the fundamental freedoms, including those to
which I have referred, and most recently a legislative package
of reforms which also is intended to implement some of the constitutional
amendments in the areas that I have mentioned to you but which
fall short of our expectations.
58. The Chairman referred in his remarks to
the re-creation of the Holy Roman Empire—and, I suppose,
to give some comfort to Turkey, there are a couple of countries
like Great Britain that were not part of the Holy Roman Empire!
But there is an argument to be made that maybe the Member States
within the EU could do more in terms of our diplomatic efforts
and public efforts to enable Turkey to be ready in a shorter time
space. From your point of view, are there things which we could
do to make that easier?
(Mr Leigh) I think that bilateral assistance, programmes
from the Member States in parallel with what the EU as such is
doing, is very useful, preferably in a coordinated way, to make
sure that we are not overlapping unnecessarily. I do think that
there are many areas (particularly, for example, the provision
of expertise on constitutional law, advice and support in the
drafting of legislation and then many technical areas related
to the Acquis) where they are trying to adopt new laws but where
they need specialist support. To some extent we try to coordinate
the provision of this support through EU programmes, for example
through the Technical Assistance Information Exchange Office in
Brussels, but I think the Member States and the United Kingdom
in particular could develop their own programmes in parallel with
ours to help Turkey prepare.
59. Could you be more specific where you think
we could be more helpful. I know, for example, that the Germans,
when they changed the nationality laws also brought some changes
in intellectual property law which enabled relationships to improve.
Is there something in particular which Britain could bring to
the table which other Member States could not, which would speed
up that progress?
(Mr Leigh) I think in the technical area one would
have to look through the various priorities under the Acquis and
see which areas we are addressing in our programmes and where
the main gaps would remain. I think in the area of constitutional
law, the strengthening of democracy, human rights, Britain is
extremely strong and could provide support to the Turks. I think
one would really need to sit down and go through the list of priorities,
see which are being addressed through our own bilateral aid programme,
which goes up to a certain point but is of course limited, and
identify gaps and see where one could imagine that British programmes
could complement them. But I think one would have to sit down
and do that in a rather systematic way, which I cannot on the
spur of the moment.
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