WRITTEN QUESTION P-3034/00 by Ioannis Souladakis (PSE) to the Commission. EU-Turkey Partnership Agreement.
Date: 2000-09-20
Institutions: European Parliament, Provisional data
Subjects: Cyprus, Kurdistan question, Türkiye, accession criteria, accession to the European Union, human rights

C 136 E/166

Official Journal of the European Communities

EN

8.5.2001

(2001/C 136 E/193)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3034/00

by Ioannis Souladakis (PSE) to the Commission

(20 September 2000)

Subject: EU-Turkey Partnership Agreement

At the Helsinki Summit it was decided that Turkey was a candidate for accession to the EU subject to
certain specific and expressly defined conditions.

The Commission is obviously concerned to ensure that summit decisions are implemented precisely, and
that the fundamental principles underpinning the outlook of European peoples and their governments are
fully observed. However, the violent reaction of a section of the Turkish press to the talks held by the
Commission delegation last July in Ankara creates the impression that certain parties may be attempting to
exclude from the draft of the Turkey-EU partnership agreement explicit references to the conditions
relating to Turkey(cid:146)s candidate status.

What steps will the Commission take to ensure that the conditions which the Helsinki Summit attached to
Turkey(cid:146)s status as a candidate for accession, namely a settlement of the Cyprus problem, an improvement
in the human rights situation, resolution of the Kurdish problem, Turkish claims in the Aegean and their
settlement by the International Court in The Hague, the democratisation of the political system, together
with the other Helsinki political criteria (cid:129) are incorporated in the main body of the text and not the
preamble of the prospective partnership agreement?

Answer given by Mr Verheugen on behalf of the Commission

(10 October 2000)

The Commission is closely monitoring the developments in Turkey in relation to the political criteria of
Copenhagen. It will present its results in the regular report for Turkey and in the accession partnership for
Turkey to be adopted on 8 November 2000.

The developments on human rights, the Cyprus issue and other related issues are subject to regular
political dialogue between the Union and Turkey.

(2001/C 136 E/194)

WRITTEN QUESTION P-3038/00

by Lu(cid:237)s Queir(cid:243) (UEN) to the Commission

(20 September 2000)

Subject: Over-production of milk in the Community

According to the information available, Community milk production has risen sharply in the last market-
ing year (1999/2000).

As a result of this increase in milk production, twelve out of the fifteen Member States have exceeded the
national milk quotas assigned to them.

The increase is undoubtedly due in part to a number of factors related to the consumption trend regarding
dairy products and productivity gains in the sector.

Will the Commission work out an overall solution with the countries concerned in order fully to allow for
likely production increases in subsequent marketing years, or will it seek to punish the producers?

Specifically as far as Portugal
is concerned, the only group who would suffer if penalties were to be
imposed would be producers in one of the more outlying regions, the Azores. The social consequences
and economic repercussions would be extremely serious, given that there are a great many producers and
milk and dairy production occupies a key place in Azorean society.