Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05ANKARA6561
2005-11-07 06:42:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Ankara
Cable title:  

TURKEY'S PLANS FOR MOVING FORWARD ON EU ACCESSION

Tags:  PREL ECON ETRD PROV TU EU 
pdf how-to read a cable
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DE RUEHAK #6561/01 3110642
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
P 070642Z NOV 05
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 0999
INFO RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES PRIORITY
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL PRIORITY 8950
C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 006561 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2015
TAGS: PREL ECON ETRD PROV TU EU
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S PLANS FOR MOVING FORWARD ON EU ACCESSION

REF: BRUSSELS (USEU) 3756

Classified By: A/DCM James Moore, reasons 1.4 (b, d).

C O N F I D E N T I A L ANKARA 006561

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/02/2015
TAGS: PREL ECON ETRD PROV TU EU
SUBJECT: TURKEY'S PLANS FOR MOVING FORWARD ON EU ACCESSION

REF: BRUSSELS (USEU) 3756

Classified By: A/DCM James Moore, reasons 1.4 (b, d).


1. (C) Summary: MFA Deputy U/S Bozkir, one of the leads in
Turkey's EU accession negotiations, told us that the GoT's
inter-ministerial negotiating structure is up and running,
and they are proceeding with the screening of initial
chapters. His immediate concerns are the Progress Report and
Accession Partnership due out November 9; Cyprus-related
issues, and what he termed as "special conditions" Turkey may
face because of the existing Customs Union with the EU. It
is likely to be a bumpy road, though the Turks understand
they are entering the technical phase. End summary.

The Screening Process
--------------

2.(SBU) Ambassador Volkan Bozkir, who has shepherded Turkey's
EU accession preparations from within the Turkish bureaucracy
for five years and will - assuming he gets agrement - soon
move to Brussls to head the Turkish Permanent Representation
to the EU, laid out the Turkish structure and strategy for
EconCouns and PolCouns. The initial screening phase had
begun in Brussels, and would be completed within one year.
The Turks (together with the Croats) had already been to
Brussels for the "educational" portion of the screening on
the Science and Research chapter, and were now returning solo
for what he termed the "implementation" portion. According
to the Commission's schedule, the Turks hoped to complete the
initial screening phase for six chapters of the Acquis before
the end of the calendar year. Once the screening process is
complete on a particular chapter, a Commission report and
recommendation, which in some cases may contain benchmarks,
will be sent to the Council. With Council approval they will
then begin to open chapters. Bozkir hoped they would
formally open Science and Research and perhaps Agriculture in
January.

The Turkish Team
--------------

3.(SBU) The nucleus of the Turkish negotiating team will,
Bozkir confirmed, consist of five players: the MFA, the
Prime Ministry, the State Planning Organization (SPO),the
Secretariat General for the EU, and their Permanent Mission


SIPDIS
to the EU. He noted that MFA controls two of these, and that
as FM Gul has the formal lead, MFA has "three trees" in this
forest. He described Gul as the "political minesweeper" and
State Minister Ali Babacan, who is organizing the overall
strategy, as overseeing the more technical aspects of the
process. Babacan would, for example, preside each week at
two screening-related inter-ministerial meetings and, as
individual chapters progress, ensure that the right
ministries or organizations are tapped to work on appropriate
chapters. There will be a series of working group meetings
as chapters are opened and progress, and subcommissions
assigned to work each individual chapter. Bozkir thought the
process was working well in its early days. (Comment: Any
kind of inter-ministerial process is unusual in Turkey. Some
have posited that Babacan's proposed structure could prove
clumsy. If it is possible for it to function relatively
well, it would actually mark an important change in how the
Turks do business within their own governmental structures.
End comment.)

The November 9 Reports
--------------

4.(SBU) The next hurdle will be the Progress Report and the
Accession Partnership document, both of which are due out
November 9. Bozkir and his colleagues have reviewed a first
draft and are "trying to avoid dangerous wording." They
realize, he said, that there will be negative language in
some areas. The Accession Partnership document must be
ratified by the Council and published in the Commission's
official gazette. Bozkir explained that the Turks are
looking for wording that is more diplomatic than technical.
Their current biggest concern is the use of language
referring to "Kurdish minority" and "Alawite minority" rights
(Note: This always runs up against Lausanne Agreement
definitional problems for the Turks; i.e., they recognize
only those minorities - Greeks, Jew and Armenians - defined
in the 1923 Lausanne Agreement. End note.) and references to
the Southeast with respect to regional disparities,
neglecting other impoverished and economically rather
backward regions of Turkey. On the plus side, the Turks
expect Turkey will be given good marks on the Copenhagen
criteria requirement that Turkey have a "functioning market
economy".

Cyprus, of Course


--------------


5. (C) Cyprus, of course, is a perennial headache. Bozkir
noted that Cyprus was included in the Accession Partnership
differently than in the past. His main concern was that the
language not give the issue a greater EU perspective while
neglecting the UN role. If the language goes further than
last December's Brussels declaration, it would, he stated,
harm the paper as a whole and undermine its credibility. It
is important, he stressed, that it be a credible document
that can be used as a reference point for the future. When
asked about the potential for Cyprus to veto the opening of
chapters unrelated to the issue of opening Turkish ports and
airports to the Republic of Cyprus, Bozkir joked that, while
Nicosia had at least 70 chances to exercise a veto during
Turkey's accession process, he doubted they would expend
internal EU political capital to block the opening of
chapers such as Science and Research.



6. (C) When asked about the GoT's plans for ratification of
the Ankara Agreement Extension Protocol, Bozkir responded
that they did not feel obliged to do so. In his view, there
was no formal requirement that parliament ratify it.
(Comment: Bozkir, so far, is the sole official with whom we
have spoken who has taken this view; it may also reflect the
current reality that the GoT has decided to bide its time
before submitting it to parliament. End comment.)

Customs Union Criteria
--------------


7. (C) An issue that clearly made Bozkir unhappy was the
prospect of the EU making resolution of outstanding issues
under the Customs Union preconditions for the opening of
certain chapters. In particular, Bozkir was sensitive to the
EU threat to delay the opening of the IPR chapter until the
Turks had fully implemented data exclusivity protections in
the pharmaceutical approval process, as required by the
Customs Union agreement and the WTO TRIPS agreement. Bozkir
acknowledged that Turkish practice could fall short in some
areas covered by the Customs Union, but said that Turkey was
in effect being "punished" for having implemented the Customs
Union in 1996, well before other countries that were now
already full EU members. Other candidate countries are not
part of a customs union with the EU. Bozkir felt that such
issues should be addressed through the process of negotiating
the specific chapters rather than making their solution
preconditions to starting the process.


8. (C) Bozkir also viewed setting economic preconditions as
not in line with the 1993 Copenhagen criteria, which had set
political conditions to the opening of negotiations, but left
economic issues to be the subject of the accession talks.
Raising conditions to open certain chapters would cause
blow-back in Ankara. Rather than encouraging resolution of
the deficiencies under the Customs Union, the result could
well be that the opening of problematic chapters would be
delayed until later in the accession process.


9. (C) Comment: The Turks - at least Bozkir, and he deals
with the entire accession bureaucracy - realize that once
chapters are open, this is no longer a negotiation in the
true sense of the word. The Turks are likely to remain in
fighting form, though, as long as they perceive that the EU
is piling additional political requirements onto the process.
The next steps here will be the reaction to the EU documents
to be released November 9 - the media are already previewing
the anti-torture and human rights steps supposedly contained
in the Accession Partnership document, likely in an attempt
to soften the blow in advance. It is unlikely, given the
prospect for numerous Cyprus-related dust-ups, that this
process will ever settle down to the "below the radar screen"
level that many Turks would like. We are in for years of
brinksmanship, hopefully mixed with true progress, both in
negotiations, and with regard to continued implementation of
reforms here in Turkey.
MCELDOWNEY