Cyprus is not the basic reason for the obstacles in Turkey’s EU accession

Oymen said that Cyprus is not the basic reason for the obstacles in Turkey’s EU accession courseUnder the title: “Oymen: ‘Cyprus is small, do not hide behind it'”, Turkish Cypriot daily Haberdar (09.08.11) reports that Onur Oymen, retired Turkish ambassador, has argued that no one should hide behind Cyprus when trying to protect his own interests, because Cyprus is too small for being able to provide shelter to anyone. In statements to AB Haber news website, Oymen evaluated the Cyprus problem and Turkey’s EU accession course.

Noting that only 13 chapters have opened in Turkey’s accession negotiations and that various vetoes exist on 18 chapters, Oymen pointed out that Turkey’s negotiations process with the EU “has been de facto suspended”.

Oymen argued that there are two reasons for which the Europeans allegedly want to prevent Turkey’s accession to the Union. The one is that the decisions in the EU Council are taken by qualified majority and the current balance will be spoiled because Turkey will be among the big countries of the Union. The second reason, according to Oymen, is that Turkey will be taking a big share from the budget of the EU. “In case Turkey has one MP, it will be granted an annual unrequited aid of 28 billion Euros by the European Parliament’s Budgetary Committee”, he said noting that this is a big amount of money and could not be found.

Oymen expressed, inter alia, the following views: “?That is, what I want to say is that Cyprus is not the basic issue. France, for example, does not say ‘settle the Cyprus problem and I will lift the veto on the chapters’. Moreover, how you will solve the Cyprus problem by exerting pressure only on Turkey? Absolutely no international problem could be solved unilaterally. They do not exert pressure on the Greek Cypriots, because a practice called the Luxembourg Rule exists in the EU. When there is a problem between an EU member country and a country which is not member of the EU, the EU always supports the member country. I do not know any exceptions. Therefore, let no one expect the EU to be impartial. The mistake was committed when Cyprus became a member [of the Union]?”