ANKARA - Turkish Economy Minister Ali Babacan has been named chief negotiator for the upcoming talks on Turkey`s accession to the European Union, scheduled to open on October 3, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced Tuesday.
"We have chosen Ali Babacan as our chief negotiator for the talks with the EU," said Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, during a meeting of lawmakers from his Justice and Development Party (AKP).
Erdogan said Babacan will take on a heavy responsibility but "God willing, with his youth and dynamism he will succeed."
Erdogan`s government has long been under fire for dragging its feet in appointing its chief negotiator for the accession talks, which are expected to take at least a decade.
The 38-year-old Babacan is the youngest and one of the most respected ministers in the Turkish cabinet.
Appointed economy minister after the AKP came to power in November 2002, he has been at the helm of a painful reform program, backed by multi-billion-dollar loans from the International Monetary Fund, which helped achieve a spectacular recovery in the Turkish economy after two severe crises.
Babacan has stayed away from the rough-and-tumble of the political arena and focused on economic reform, acting rather as a technocrat without indulging into populism, the trademark of Turkish politics.
Born in 1967 in Ankara, the young Babacan turned out to be a prodigy -- he graduated with the highest marks from high school and then from Ankara`s prestigious Middle East Technical University, where he studied industrial engineering.
He obtained a postgraduate degree in business management in the United States and worked in the financial sector there before returning home in 1994.
Analysts have earlier singled out Babacan as a possible choice to head the accession talks, citing his experience in often thorny negotiations with the IMF and pointing out that economic issues will be among the thorniest on the agenda in the talks with Brussels.
05/24/2005 10:32 GMT