BRUSSELS - Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Abdullah Gul and State Minister Kursad Tuzmen will participate in ''Turkey's European Union (EU) End-Game?'' conference in Brussels on June 17.
The conference will be held under European Policy Summit by Friends of Europe, the Union of Turkish Chambers of Commodity Exchanges (TOBB), the Turkish Exporters' Assembly (TIM) and Istanbul Textile and Ready-Made Clothing Exporters Union (ITKIB). EU Commissioner for Enlargement Guenter Verheugen and Irish Minister of State for European Affairs Dick Roche will also attend the conference.
''How open is Turkey's road to EU membership'', ''Has European public opinion changed in Turkey's favour'', and ''Has the Customs Union delivered the goods'' are among the issues to be discussed during the conference.
A report which discusses the implications of Turkey's future membership of the EU will be presented to participants. The report includes the difference of this membership from other countries.
The report examines whether Turkey is too big, too poor, not European by culture, geography or history, has dangerous borders and will damage the EU integration process or not.
The report recalls that Turkey was formally given candidate country status in Helsinki Summit in 1999 and it was decided to start membership negotiations if Turkey fulfills Copenhagen political criteria completely in 2002. The report also includes the expectations of EU from Turkey and the pessimist atmosphere in Turkey towards EU.
The report refers to reforms which are fulfilled and have to be fulfilled in Turkey and stresses that if Turkey enters EU it will be the second country which has the largest population within the EU.
Noting that economic instabilities were left behind in Turkey and the economic development will speed up when negotiations start, the report says that the economic effect of Turkey's accession to the EU will be few but positive.
According to the report, Turkey is an important bridge between EU and Muslim countries and the accession of Turkey, which is democratic, friend with EU countries and an ally that provides prosperity, will be in favor of the EU.
The report says that early accession of Turkey to EU will ease EU's reaching its strategical targets and will show that the claims about EU as ''Christian Club'' do not reflect the truth and that the Union is secular and multi-cultural.
The report notes that the claims that Turkey is too big and poor to access EU will have negative effects on EU's reliability.
(GC-AÖ) 16.06.2004