Turkey's EU accession negotiations at the mercy of conflicting interests

On 3 October the European Union intends to launch its accession negotiations with Turkey. However, the decision to initiate talks may end up not being decided until an extraordinary meeting of the European Council on 26 September, or even until the morning of 3 October itself. For at their informal meeting in Newport on 1 and 2 September 2005, EU foreign ministers failed to reach agreement on the last few unresolved issues, and the political decision-makers' interests are too far apart for them to reach anything but a superficial, ostensible understanding. Accordingly, the Union will probably end up launching negotiations about which only a minority of its Member States have no reservations. And since the Turkish government's euphoria at being considered for accession has also evaporated, the talks could well lead to an outcome other than EU membership. Yet this turn of events should not be the Union's objective right from the outset. (SWP-Comments / SWP)