BRUSSELS, Oct 6 (AFP) - The European Commission on Wednesday gave Turkey a green light to start talks to join the European Union, but set a series of tough conditions warning there was no guarantee of success.
The EU executive's recommendations, which will form the basis for decision by EU leaders in mid-December, were approved despite concerns from some that Turkey is simply too big to join the European club.
"The commission's answer is yes ... It is a conditional yes," European Commission President Romano Prodi told the European Parliament, adding that Europe had nothing to fear from Turkish membership.
"A Europe that is sure of itself, has a constitution and strong institutions and policies, is returning to economic growth and is based on a strong model of peace, prosperity and solidarity has nothing to fear from the integration of Turkey," he said.
Turkey, an official candidate since 1999, has been waiting to join the European club for four decades but its efforts have stumbled over its civil rights record.
Commissioners confirmed their stance after meeting to hammer out a final version of their much-leaked report on Ankara's membership bid.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan meanwhile said that Ankara hopes to start EU negotiations in the first half of next year, leading to membership in a "reasonable period of time."
"We hope to bring a long-travelled road to its final lap with the initiation of accession negotiations in the first half of 2005," he said in Strasbourg, France, shortly before the commission signed off on its report.
Many Europeans are alarmed at the prospect of the EU taking in a poor, populous and mostly Muslim state that has 90 percent of its territory in Asia and which borders Iraq, Iran and Syria.
An EU impact report also due out Wednesday says that between 500,000 and four million Turkish migrants a year could move into the EU after membership.
The main report from the commission, the EU executive, was expected to recommend measures to prevent massive labour migration into the European Union, which is already home to nearly four million Turkish immigrants.
It was also set to criticize Turkey's record on torture, religious freedom, and violence against women.
But although it has an array of caveats, and warns that Turkish membership could cost the 25-member bloc betwen 16.5 and 27.5 billion euros a year by 2025, the core message was good news for Ankara.
The report concludes that Turkey has "sufficiently fulfilled" political criteria to begin talks, although it remains unclear exactly when those negotiations could start.
Dutch Foreign Minister Bernard Bot, whose country holds the rotating EU presidency, said in an interview published Wednesday that they were likely to open in the second half of next year.
A final draft version of the Brussels report said Turkey was unlikely to actually join the EU until "well into the next decade" and stressed the need for the EU to constantly monitor not only the pledged reforms but their implementation on the ground too.
It also warned that Brussels "will recommend the suspension of the negotiations in the case of a serious and persistent breach of the principles of liberty, democracy, respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms and the rule of law on which the Union is founded."
The final version of the report was not immediately available to journalists.
One cloud hanging over the whole project is a pledge by French President Jacques Chirac to hold a referendum on Ankara's EU hopes. In theory such a vote could simply reject Turkish EU entry, whatever happens in the negotiations.
The next head of the European Commission, Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, said Monday he welcomed the idea of referendums in EU member countries.
The commission meanwhile confirmed Wednesday that Romania and Bulgaria are on track to join the EU in 2007.