ECONOMIC CRISIS IN THE EU AND ITS POTENTIAL RESULTS

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis delivered a presentation entitled “Economic Crisis in the EU and Its Potential Results” in the 4th Ambassadors Conference held under the auspices of Minister of Foreign Affairs Ahmet Davutoglu in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Ankara. 

Addressing the ambassadors in his presentation, Minister Bagis indicated that prejudice was the most important problem in Turkey’s EU process and the EU process was highly important for Turkey. Reporting that Turkish people gained self confidence through the reforms, Bagis also reminded that the EU was still Turkey’s biggest trade partner and a major part of direct international investment in Turkey was from the EU.

“Struggling with one of the greatest economic crises in its history, EU still has one of the highest level of welfare in the world.” said Bagis and exemplified the fact that this crisis wasn’t unique in Europe’s history. Indicating that the first crisis was faced in May 1952, when France failed to ratify the European Defense Union, Bagis reminded that French President Charles de Gaulle vetoed British membership in 1963, and that Margaret Thatcher, the British Prime Minister in 1979, demanded a rebate on the UK’s contributions to the EU budget, which she secured five years later. Summarizing the crises in Europe, Bagis said “Just as Jean Monnet, one of the founding fathers of the European Union have said ‘Europe will be forged in crises, and will be the sum of the solutions adopted for those crises”.

In his presentation Bagis also mentioned about the bill banning the denial of Armenian Genocide, which has passed in the French Parliament and said “This bill is completely irrational and unreasonable. This issue is being politically exploited”.

Source: AA