Turkey steps up EU offensive

Turkey will step up efforts to win over MEPs a decision to delay publication of the European commission’s progress report on the pace of Ankara's reforms.

EU officials have delayed a highly sensitive assessment of Turkey’s EU entry negotiations until November 8, the report was originally due for publication on October 24.

European parliament political fixers are also looking for delay, say sources, to head off a Strasbourg plenary vote attacking Turkey's record.

Sources close to negotiations indicate that the commission's delay will give Ankara more time to lobby over a critical report on Turkey from Dutch MEP Camiel Eurlings.

“The Eurlings report is the most critical parliamentary report yet. It contains 80 paragraphs and about 75 are critical,” a parliament official told this website.

“And it looks like it would get backed. Eurlings has supporters within the centre-right and the socialists.”

But moves are afoot within the parliament’s corridors of power to kill a September 27 vote on the Eurlings findings.

Socialist MEPs – the centre-left is the parliament’s second biggest bloc – will use a Thursday meeting of political group and committee leaders to push for delay.

“The Eurlings report is a mess. It has been very heavily amended and is too negative,” said a source.

The Dutch right winger's report says Turkey must recognise the Armenian genocide as a precondition for EU entry.

His report laments a “slowdown in democratic reforms” and calls on Ankara to remove or amend articles that allowed judges to limit freedom of expression as well as normalise relations with Cyprus.

A delegation of MPs from Turkey recently branded the European parliament’s findings as “nasty and negative”.

The commission says its decision to delay its progress report on Turkey is not a political one, and was motivated purely by administrative constraints.

Reports on Croatia, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia will also now be published on November 8.

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