Spain hopes to accelerate Turkey's EU talks, minister says

Saariselka, Finland - Spain intends to accelerate Turkey's talks on joining the European Union by opening negotiations on four more legal areas by the end of June, Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Saturday. Spain currently holds the EU's rotating presidency and is tasked with leading accession talks until July 1. Recent presidencies have only managed to open talks on one or, at most, two legal areas in their six-month terms.

"The Spanish presidency has put into its agenda a strong commitment towards Turkish accession to the EU," and hopes to open talks on four more issues, Moratinos said.

Countries which want to join the EU have to bring their laws into line with EU rules in 35 so-called negotiating "chapters."

Turkey has so far opened talks on 14 chapters, with another eight frozen in its row with Cyprus.

Moratinos said that Spain hoped to open talks on education, competitiveness, food safety and the all-important energy chapter, a key portfolio because the EU sees Turkey as the best transit provider of energy supplies from the Middle East.

Moratinos was speaking at informal talks with a handful of European counterparts, including Turkey's Ahmet Davutoglu, in the Arctic Finnish ski resort of Saariselka.

The talks were partially overshadowed by a Swedish parliamentary decision on Thursday to label the killing of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 as genocide.

Moratinos said that the question of the killings was a bilateral issue between Turkey and Armenia.

Turkey has been negotiating to join the EU since 2005, but its accession is opposed by key states including Germany and France.

Source: Earth Times.
Link: http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/313912,spain-hopes-to-accelerate-turkeys-eu-talks-minister-says.html.