Way cleared for Turkey to move towards EU

European leaders today paved the way for Turkey to join the EU as its first Muslim country.

A deal on starting formal talks with Ankara emerged on the second day of a fraught summit in Brussels – more than 40 years after Turkey first knocked on Europe’s door seeking club membership.

Agreement almost slipped away as Turkish Premier Recep Erdogan haggled for better terms for launching talks than those on offer from the EU.

In the end he won a concession putting off until later the unpalatable – for Turkey – requirement for the Turks as an eventual EU country to “recognise” fellow member state and 30-year adversary Cyprus.

But he bit on the bullet and accepted that Turkey now negotiates on the basis that full membership is not guaranteed to be the outcome and that, even if it is, any accession deal may include restrictions on mass migration of Turks into other EU countries.

The October 3 launch date offered by the 25 EU leaders and now accepted falls in the middle of Britain’s EU presidency, giving Mr Blair a grandstanding role in extending the EU’s borders into the Middle East with accession of its first secular Muslim state.

This afternoon's deal followed frantic to-ing and fro-ing between EU government delegations, with Tony Blair playing the role of ringmaster as Turkey's staunchest ally.

The offer from the EU leaders posed several problems for the Turkish Premier, who spent much of the day haggling over the small print.

Biggest sticking point was a clause requiring Ankara to recognise Cyprus, which joined the EU last May, still divided after the Turkish invasion 30 years ago.

Officials insisted such recognition was inevitable if Turkey was serious about becoming a member of the EU club, but Mr Erdogan was reluctant to sign any such pledge – and the Cypriot government threatened to veto any EU talks with Turkey if he did not.

Finally, the way was cleared with a classic EU fudge allowing Mr Erdogan to avoid any commitment now, but promising that Turkey would recognise Cyprus before the negotiation talks begin next October.

There were two other stumbling blocks which Mr Erdogan tried, and failed, to have removed from the conditions for his country opening full EU membership talks.

The first was the inclusion of a declaration that any accession deal may involve “safeguards” to prevent too many Turks emigrating to the rest of the EU after membership.

The wording warned that safeguard clauses “which are permanently available as a basis for safeguard measures, may be considered” in areas such as free movement of Turkish citizens to other EU member states.

This was included – and remains in the deal – because Turkey is so large (population 71 million and rising fast) that the impact of the normal free movement rights given to any EU citizens to live and work anywhere else in the Union could be destabilising.

So EU leaders insisted on the keeping the option to restrict free movement - something never before imposed on countries seeking EU membership.

Secondly, the deal did not even offer the Turks any guarantee that the end result of entry talks will be full membership: the summit conclusions said: “The shared objective of the negotiations is accession. These negotiations are an open-ended process, the outcome of which cannot be guaranteed beforehand.”

Mr Erdogan was aware that, whatever the shortcomings from Turkey’s point of view, the offer from the EU leaders was probably the best offer the Turks were likely to get as the basis for starting talks.

Having waited for more than 40 years for the opportunity, EU leaders were banking on the Turkish regime seizing the chance now, rather than gambling on a better offer later.

Finally, after agonising hours of tense bartering, Mr Erdogan landed the Cyprus compromise – effectively promising to make a promise on recognising Cyprus by the time the accession talks begin – and accepted the rest.

Subject to the Cyprus pledge being honoured, talks will start next October 3 2005.