CONSENSUS SHOULD BE REACHED FOR THE REFORMS WHICH WOULD ENABLE TURKEY TO PROGRESS

Minister for EU Affairs and chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis, met the university students studying international relations at the Izmir Chamber of Commerce. Bagis made a speech on Turkey's EU accession process and answered the questions of the students.

Bagis said that they should have made preparations for the future rather than questioning the past and continued as follows:

"Turkey was given a date for starting the negotiations in the Summit on December 17, 2004 when Mr. Prime Minister showed his determination. The main reason of achieving such a decision is that we focused on the reforms. The government and the opposition joined their forces in the TGNA and adopted reform packages which fitted Turkey. As the standard of human rights became more coherent to the EU standards and steps were taken in order to strengthen the free market economy, Turkey forced the EU to give a date for the start of the negotiations. A great effort was made to achieve that.

The EU has ended the scanning process in 35 Chapters and opened 12 of them. We are making efforts to open new Chapters. The important thing for us is not to open chapters in the EU process but to open the minds."

Addressing the students Bagis said: "You are the ones who will govern Turkey when it becomes an EU member state. You cannot progress on the way to EU without determining the problems first and then making efforts to resolve them. Since 1960 Turkey has been governed by constitutions adopted after military coups. There have been no constitutions submitted by the civil governments to the citizens for 51 years."

Indicating that it was impossible to be an EU member before adopting a constitution which would be considered by all citizens as their own, Bagis said:

"We have alternatives in Turkey other than the constitution adopted by a military regime. We should reach a consensus on the reforms which would enable Turkey to progress. We, as a party, prepared a text which is open to every kind of conciliation and agreement. We are ready to make every kind of discussions on it. It may have deficiencies. If your addressee is wilful to speak with you, you can overcome such problems. We cannot become an EU member without adopting the reconciliation culture. Don't the EU countries have problems among themselves? If you consider how bloody the wars among those countries were, you can see how deep their differences from each other are. They made an agreement not to make war after 1949 so we should make such an agreement."

Indicating that the opposition parties do not say that they were satisfied with the current Constitution but they did not accept to cooperate with them when they proposed to amend it, Bagis said the fact that the business sector was more enthusiastic regarding the constitutional amendment than the opposition parties should be a process making everyone think.

Bagis delivered a speech at the lunch held by MUSIAD Izmir branch in Mövempick Hotel and said that Turkey was passing through a historic period and progressing towards being a more democratic, prosperous, wealthy and reputable country. Bagis said that the constitutional amendment was necessary for Turkey to overcome the barriers, break down the walls and take its place among the modern civilisations."

Attending the special assembly meeting of Izmir Chamber of Commerce the same day, Bagis said Izmir was one of the cities where you feel the European atmosphere best and the Europeans who spent a few hours in Izmir would get the correct messages about Turkey.

Source: AA