MINISTER BAGIS ANSWERS THE QUESTIONS ON THE LIVE TV PROGRAM

Participating in the TV program “Moderator Haftasonu” on Kanal 24, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis answered the questions of Hakan Celik in the live program.

Upon a question on how the economic crisis in Europe will affect the Turkey-Europe relationship, Bagis stated that Turkey had experienced an economic crisis more severe than that of Europe before 2002, Turkey overcame this crisis with a strong government which was backed by national will and achieved stability and confidence. Indicating that Europe would overcome this crisis with good management and, in this way, Turkey’s significance would appear much more clear than ever, Bagis said: “Our approach is: New Europe is possible with Turkey.”

Touching upon elections being held in France, Bagis was asked “Could Sarkozy doworse than this?” and Minister Bagis answered this question as “Whatever he does at this point is relevant because he knows he will lose. Actually he wants to create hostility to Islam, but since %10 of the population in France is Muslim he tries to create a different atmosphere by using Turkey and gain many of Le Pen’s votes. This is not a campaign aiming to gain Armenian votes. This is a bigger game.” Indicating that they were waiting for the French Constitutional Court’s decision on the draft law criminalizing the rejection of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915, Bagis noted that Sarkozy’s own Minister also indicated that this draft law was quite unreasonable.

By reminding him that a preliminary inquiry was launched concerning him under the draft law criminalizing the rejection of Armenian allegations pertaining to the incidents of 1915, he was asked “Will you go to Switzerland soon? How is the inquiry to be conducted?” He said as a response to this question “If necessary, I will go to the Switzerland. I receive unconfirmed information about the preliminary inquiry. An official notification has not been made to me. Following pressure by an Armenian association, a judge launched a preliminary inquiry. They even called the news reporters that we had talked to and asked them some questions. These are not important subjects. I am a Minister of the Turkish Republic. No one can detain a Minister of the Turkish Republic.”

Upon a question on whether he thinks that Turkey has reached European standards, Bagis said “We continue to advance on this path. I believe that we are now in the right place. There are also some problems. These are not related to laws, but related to minds. If you change the law in the Parliament, the application of this and the adaptation of minds to the new law will take a long time. We have lived through this situation in the last period: Sometimes people who want a storm in a tea cup; some authors who see themselves specially authorized struggle to cause a storm to break out in Turkey…All of these will pass”.

Upon a question on whether it is good for Turkey to enter the Euro region considering the economic crisis in Europe, Bagis said “If we were a member of the European Union, maybe in the Council meetings we could express the mistakes that Europe makes, and  prevent these. I think even if we are a member of the EU, we couldn’t be a part of the the Euro Region in this circumstance; even if we were a member of the European Union, we would not have  allowed it  to come to this situation because we have already gone through these experiences.”