ROME - State Minister Ali Babacan said on Monday that economic reforms regarding the European Union (EU) would gain importance following political reforms in Turkey and their being put into practice.
Babacan attended an informal meeting of ministers on regional cohesion policies held in Rome. He told A.A correspondent that they would speed up economic reforms.
Babacan gave information to his European colleagues about reform activities on economy in Turkey during his speech in the meeting. He also said that Turkey was in favor of enlargement and strengthening of EU coesion policies by covering candidate countries as well.
Emphasizing that cohesion policy of EU was also important for competition power of Europe, Babacan said, ''EU coesion policies are very important for decreasing the development differences both between countries and between the regions of a country itself. EU should attribute importance to its coesion policies to become stronger and more superior than other countries as a whole for competition.''
Noting that pre-accession economic program, which was prepared within EU membership process, was conveyed to European Commission last July, Babacan said that they have already started activities regarding economic reforms.
Babacan said, ''economic reforms regarding EU will gain importance following political reforms in Turkey and their being put into practice. We have already started activities on the issue. Our reform activities are continuing rapidly for legal arrangements and new administrative structure.''
Babacan said that there was a serious fund transfer from EU to the countries which were in membership process to EU. He added, ''we also see that there is a rapid increase in direct foreign investment of private sector institutions of EU countries to the countries which are EU member or in membership process. Thus, an important amount of source transfer from EU to Turkey in coming period is in question.''
Emphasizing the significance of proper usage of those sources, Babacan said, ''we are rapidly preparing our legal infrastructure regarding the appropriate and proper usage of these funds. You know that we signed a contract with EU for a donation worth of one billion Euros covering 2003-2005 period. We used the first tranche of this donation within last week.''
Noting that he would hold a joint press conference with Kretschmer on Thursday, Babacan said that in a way they would officially start the usage of donations received from EU with this press conference.
Babacan said that they prepared a three-year national development plan covering 2004, 2005 and 2006. He added that they would put forth a detailed program on ways of usage for EU funds with this plan.
(GC-AÖ) 21.10.2003