Kuneralp: "AMID a stalled accesion process, the EU has lost its leverage on Turkey"

Since there is no clear perspective on Turkish accession to the European Union, the bloc will not play a key role in Turkey's post-election reform efforts, Turkey's Ambassador to the EU Selim Kuneralp said late last week. "The European Commission's recommendations will be taken on board to the extent that they reflect universal norms," Kuneralp told news website EUobserver, speaking of efforts to draft a new constitution. "Take the death penalty. Whether or not you want to join the EU, it's a good thing to abolish the death penalty (which Turkey did in 2004). But in the absence of any clear perspective of accession, there's no reason why Turkey should align its legislation toward narrow EU standards. To put it simply, the EU has lost its leverage on Turkey." He added that officials "in Ankara are fed up. They made all sorts of attempts to satisfy the Commission. But the more material we gave them, the more they demanded."