BY CUNEYT ARCAYUREK
CUMHURIYET- Columnist Cuneyt Arcayurek comments on the new public administration reform bill and the Cyprus issue. A summary of his column is as follows:
The drawbacks of the public administration reform bill are slowly emerging, and the sentence about Cyprus added to the European Union report on Turkey at the last moment is the latest example of a move to lead Turkey down a dead-end street. The government seems to be giving public servants a favor, as it’s about to conclude the public administration reform bill and put off the Iraq issue. Up to now the public administration reform bill has gotten a muted reaction. We don’t know yet what the main opposition party thinks of it. The first reactions are still coming in. The Prime Ministry’s Inspection Council’s letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blasted this bill’s measure removing the inspection mechanism as ‘a deliberate attempt against the basic structure of the republic and the state.’ Or is this just an attempt to destroy the state’s memory?
What’s the point of attaching all schools except universities and colleges to special administrations? If the aim is to let schools be influenced by political and religious movements in their home regions, of course this method means serving their own interests. However, it doesn’t take a genius to predict that this arrangement would damage national integrity and the secular republic and deal a blow to the understanding of the unitary state.
The EU Commission put the condition about Cyprus into writing in its new progress report and this vexed our Foreign Ministry, as if EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen hasn’t been saying for months that it would be impossible for Ankara to get a date for membership talks before the Cyprus problem is solved. However, the government’s policy isn’t clear. Erdogan opposed inclusion of a solution to the Cyprus issue in the progress report, arguing that the Copenhagen criteria didn’t include Cyprus. So the West was using Cyprus as an excuse not to give a date. Doesn’t Erdogan’s stance show that he knew beforehand that the EU’s progress report would refer to the Cyprus issue?