THE YEAR 2010 WILL BE IMPORTANT IN TERMS OF PROGRESS IN THE EU PROCESS

The Internal Coordination and the Harmonization Committee Meeting was held with the participation of EU Permanent Contact Points at the Secretariat General for European Union. Speaking at the opening of the meeting, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis stated that Turkey was determined about the EU and added:

"There is a definite political will. No one can block Turkey's path to the EU. Our Prime Minister is the most crucial key actor and the director in the EU process. Our axis is Ankara and our horizon is 360 degrees. Our target is EU full membership."

We realized many important reforms in 2009 and would determinedly continue to do so, said Bagis. Stating that the government was clearly determined about the EU, Bagis said technical chapters on taxation and environment were opened."

Bagis also stated that while the Reform Monitoring Group had gathered 13 times since its establishment in 2003, it gathered 5 times in the previous year. It has been decided that the RMG would gather once in two months and at least six times in the year 2010, Bagis added.

"The EU is at the top of our agenda" Bagis said and added that the EU process was comprehensively handled in the last meeting of the Secretariat General of the National Security Council, and that it was a priority issues in the Ministerial Cabinet's first meeting of the year.

Bagis stated that certain people claimed that there was a conflict among the institutions in Turkey and that setting the EU accession process as an objective, this meeting gathered all the institutions together and indicated that there was no such conflict.

Stating that the EU process would continue in 4 main platforms in the year 2010, Bagis said this strategy was approved by the Council of Ministers and was being revised by the Secretariat General of the National Security Council.

Summarizing the 4 platform strategy as ‘Everyone in Turkey shall mind their own business from now on', Bagis said that they ignored the anti-Turkish statements in Europe and aimed to raise the living standards and wanted a country of EU standards whose citizens could own the country as their ‘own homeland' without paying attention to religious beliefs, political attitudes and ethnic roots

Bagis said they hoped that the government and the opposition would cooperatively enact the reform laws in the year 2010.

Mentioning the discussions about the elections in the meeting, Bagis said there would not be any elections in 2010 and added "Our people have expectations from us in 2010."

Bagis informed that in addition to monitoring, coordination and harmonization meetings, the meetings on different chapters would also be held under Political Consultation Meetings (SİYAK) from now on.

Source: AA