"A Message to Ankara: Open Up to Free Trade (or Forget Europe)
From the desk of James McConalogue on Thu, 2006-11-09 22:02
On Wednesday 8 November, the European Commission recommended that the Turkish membership talks proceed through to the end of the year. But, how long should the Turkish EU membership talks last? Given the embarrassingly weighty opposition and the lack of serious commitment by any other EU member state to fully back the Turkish government, why are the discussions still set to continue? Since Turkey shows little willingness to embrace the free exchange of ideas (opposed by Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code) or free exchange of labour (opposed by closure of airports to Greek Cypriots) or free exchange of trade (opposed by breaking the customs union agreement), why have European states not walked away from the negotiation table before now?"
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