Turkey and Croatia become EU candidates

TURKEY and Croatia officially became the latest European Union candidate countries late last night after a day of knife-edge diplomacy.

Following more than 30 hours of torturous negotiations and phone calls from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Ankara, the way was finally cleared for what should be the first EU member with a Muslim majority.

But for Turkey and its population of 70 million it will be a long and winding road with final rejection always a possible outcome while Croatia is almost certain to become the EU’s 28th member by 2010.

Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern said it was a good day for the union.

“It’s important to have Turkey in for the stability and security of Europe and that part of the world,” he said.

He hoped that with education, EU citizens’ support for Turkey would increase from the current third that favour bringing it into the union.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who brokered the deal said everyone will benefit from this enlargement as they had from every previous enlargement of the Union.

Turkey was a European country, a founding member of the Council of Europe and the one Europe turned to when it was desperate to defend itself during the Cold War.

“We owe this to Turkey,” he said.

First Austria and then Cyprus threatened to scupper the start of negotiations with Turkey. Then Turkey disagreed with proposals for ever-tightening conditions.

The stand-off went on all yesterday. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul had refused to leave Ankara until the details were agreed.

Now Turkey will begin the gruelling task of absorbing the 80,000 pages of EU laws and of bringing standards up to those of the union.

The process is expected to take at least 10 years and even then Turkey will never qualify for the generous farm payments, structural funds or even free movement of its workers enjoyed by current EU members.

The way was cleared for Croatia’s membership negotiations to begin after it was confirmed that the country was cooperating with the UN chief war crimes prosecutor, Carla del Ponte.