Paris relaunches negotiations with Ankara

Published on 14 February 2013 at 14:46

"The first step towards a thaw after years of frozen talks,” remarks Le Monde in the wake of the February 12 meeting between French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu, which concluded with Paris announcing that it was in favour of relaunching negotiations on Turkish accession to the European Union.

The initiative marks a clean break with the attitude adopted by Nicolas Sarkozy, who was opposed to Ankara’s entry and exercised his veto on five chapters [or policy conditions] of negotiations in 2007.

The daily explains that since the official opening of negotiations in 2005, 13 out of 35 chapters have been opened, and five remain blocked by Paris. The blocked chapters concern regional policy, economic and monetary union, the CAP, and institutional and financial matters.

To demonstrate its goodwill, the French government has accepted to open one of the five chapters blocked by the previous government, the chapter on regional policy.

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Ireland, which currently occupies the EU’s rotating presidency “is hoping to open this chapter by the end of the quarter. It will be the first step forward since June 2010”, notes Le Monde. Furthermore, Dublin “has not ruled out talks on another chapter relating to the economic and monetary union”, even if Paris has argued that “it is not a priority in the current context of the reconstruction of the eurozone,” the daily explains.

“Accession talks have all but ground to a halt due to an intractable dispute over Cyprus,” adds Zaman in Istanbul, which notes that Turkey still refuses to recognise Nicosia’s claim to sovereignty, and supports the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. However, Ankara has not given up hope —

Despite the slow progress and waning domestic support, Turkey has continued to push for full membership of the union and has said it wants to join before 2023, the centenary of its founding as a republic.

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