swisspolitics.org: Turkey's EU entry would halt integration-Giscard

swisspolitics.orgTurkey's EU entry would halt integration-Giscard

The architect of the European Union constitution warned the 25-nation bloc on Friday against starting accession talks with Turkey next month, saying Ankara's entry would kill off hopes of tighter political integration. Speaking just 10 days before the EU launches membership talks with Ankara on October 3, former French President Valery Giscard d'Estaing said most French voters opposed Turkish membership. "They fear that, four months after the referendum (on the EU constitution), this decision is being taken behind their backs," Giscard told a conference of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), France's governing centre-right party. Concern about Turkish membership was blamed in part for French and Dutch voters' rejection of the EU constitution in referendums earlier this year. French presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy, the UMP leader, has steadfastly opposed Turkish EU entry and wants the Union to offer Ankara a special economic partnership instead.President Jacques Chirac has backed Turkish membership and said voters would have the final say on whether Ankara will join the union in a referendum. But Giscard said French voters realised that if accession talks were to begin France would not have the political weight to bloc Turkish membership if, after 10-15 years of negotiations, Ankara met all entry requirements.