"Not Enough… Now Come the Political Criteria!
Enlargement Commissioner of the time, Guenter Verheugen, was holding a press conference about the 2004 progress report which paved the way for Turkey’s membership negotiations with the European Union (EU).
As many of my colleagues, I considered the progress report adopted after heated debate full of pitfalls, the continuation of the negotiations would always be under threat. Both parties would carry out the negotiations through the “perception of constant threat.” Hence, it would become an estranged process; this phase of the dispute would turn into a conflict. While one side would prod the EU process “to split itself into small pieces, become smaller, insult and revive Sevres,” the other side would produce problems as many as it can, saying, “The Turks we drove away twice from the gates of Vienna, are now trying to come back.” As Dutch Prof. Frits Bolkestein said, “Our Vienna triumph will be useless if we open the way for membership to Turks,” in his speech a month before the Commission ratified the progress report. Bolkestein, the sole member to vote against the report, dreamed of remaking history and becoming the “modern-day Jan Sobieski."
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