Worrying lack of progress in Turkey

2.00.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Wed 21st May 2008

The European Parliament has voted to adopt a report on Turkey's 2007 progress in accession negotiations. The report from the Foreign Affairs Committee welcomes several recent legislative activities of Turkey, while insisting that the speed of reforms must pick up. The report calls on Turkey to continue its constitutional reforms and, regardless of those reforms, calls for the Turkish penal code, particularly article 301, to be changed.

Commenting, Alexander Graf Lambsdorff (DE, FDP) ALDE Shadow Rapporteur, said:

"We are disappointed by the slow pace of reforms in Turkey. The government had received a clear mandate a year ago and has not made use of it to advance progress towards implementing European standards. All groups were unified in the assessment that we can and must expect more from a candidate country."

Andrew Duff (UK, Lib Dem), Vice-President of the EU-Turkey delegation, added:

"The CHP, the main opposition party, seeks to sacrifice Turkish democracy on the altar of an aggressive laicism which is not, in my view, faithful to the example of Mustafa Kemal but, instead, tends to suffocate pluralism in Turkey and to choke off freedom of expression. The European Liberal message must be clear: if Turkey's Supreme Court goes on closing down democratic parties in Turkey, it will kill off all prospects of EU membership."