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EU enlargement won’t stop, says Belgian foreign minister
Vanackere, speaking in Nicosia after talks with Greek Cypriot Foreign Minister Markos Kyprianou, also dismissed any “enlargement fatigue” within the EU. “We want to make sure that all the candidate countries continue to hear in the EU not a message of enlargement fatigue … but instead a full conviction that every country that is willing to do the effort … to go the road … to get closer to the acquis communautaire, has a place in the European Union,” he said.
Turkey began accession talks with the EU in 2005, but the progress has been slow since then, with talks having been opened on one-third of the 35 policy chapters so far and closed only on one of them. Public enthusiasm in Turkey for EU membership has waned amid opposition in Europe against Turkish accession on religious and cultural grounds.
Vanackere said each candidate country has “its own future in its own hands” and that entry into the EU should be merit based. “The idea, of course, is that the European train should not stop, that we should be able to give a clear message in favor of change in the good direction for each and every of these candidate countries,” he said. “Croatia is almost at the end station, we have just started with Iceland … and I am also talking about Turkey, and I make no exception.”
He sidestepped a question about whether Turkey can join the European Union while the Cyprus problem remains unresolved by saying that problems are not solved with a bang but by a step-by-step approach.
Greek Cyprus, which represents the entire island in the EU, threatens to block progress in Turkey’s accession unless Ankara agrees to concessions in Cyprus. The EU suspended accession talks with Turkey on eight chapters in 2006, citing Turkey’s failure to open its ports and airports to traffic from Greek Cyprus. Ankara says it will open its ports and airports when the EU fulfills a 2004 promise for direct trade with the Turkish Cypriots.
Vanackere said the talks with Kyprianou included progress in Cyprus talks as well. Turkish and Greek Cypriot leaders have held dozens of rounds of talks on reuniting the island since 2008. Turkey and the Turkish Cypriot leadership insist that a settlement should be reached by the end of this year.
Belgium took over the EU’s rotating presidency in June and will remain at helm of the EU until January.
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