Cyprus Weekly
MEPs condemn Turkish boasts
From Angelos Marcopoulos
in Strasbourg
LEADING MEPs reacted strongly to Turkish Ambassador to the EU Vulkan Bozkir's claim Turks are fed up with Europe after the EU Commission dropped the words ‘accession’ from mention of negotiations.
The people of Turkey would not listen to calls for human rights because Europe would be losing its influence, he claimed.
One warning was that a condition for EU funding was respect for human rights' in a resolution adopted yesterday.
EU Commission President Jose Barroso said in answer to a Cyprus Weekly question on the matter: "Yes, certainly. The EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights must also apply to all EU external relations".
And the chairman of the EU Parliament’s largest political grouping, Joseph Daul, said: "It's not for Europe to be ashamed of its human rights policy."
Bildt row ‘misunderstanding’
THE row over Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt’s recent statements on the occupied areas was a misunderstanding that has now been cleared up, a Swedish minister told me this week.
Swedish Minister for EU Affairs, Cecilia Malmstrom, also stressed that the EU's fresh call to search a solution for Cyprus' issue "on the basis of EU values" implies that "all levels must be involved" - "EU and CoE, together with the UN. She agreed that certain media had misinterpreted some statements, giving false impressions.
"Yes, I think it was a misunderstanding" she went on to say, confirming President Tassos Papadopoulos's criticism of some inaccurate media reports about his observations on Bildt's alleged position on the occupied areas and his direct contacts with Swedish Prime Minister Reinfeldt.
"So there is no offence," she concluded.
Malmstrom confirmed that Sweden will take over CoE's overall rotating Presidency next spring, under a special agreement with Slovenia, which prefers to focus on its EU chairmanship.
"We are always trying to find solutions, but we are convinced that we must also bring it to the international level, to the UN level, in order to find a solution, she said.
Cyprus MEP’s report adopted
THE EU Parliament yesterday adopted a key report by Cyprus MEP Adamos Adamou on cooperation between the EU and CoE on human rights, with an overwhelming majority of 510 votes to 51, and 10 abstentions.
CoE Director on Human Rights, Philippe Boillat, speaking earlier to The CyprusWeekly, said that the organisation found the agreement brokered with the EU "very satisfactory".
The move came the same week that the EU's leadership officially proclaimed in Strasbourg the EU's Charter of Fundamental Rights.
The EU-CoE agreement determines in which way the EU's Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA), a new body based in Vienna, may cooperate with the CoE, the oldest, largest and most experienced human rights organisation on the continent.