The EU President praises reforms but says they still have to be seen in action.

Oct 24, 2002

The President of the European Commission has ruled out Turkey being given a date to begin accession negotiations at the European Union’s Copenhagen summit for EU membership.

EU President Romano Prodi said on Thursday that no date would be given to Turkey for talks, even though Greece, Great Britain and Germany have all spoken in favour.

While praising Turkey for adopting a series of reforms aimed at beginning the country’s laws into line with those of the EU, Prodi told a press conference that the reforms had to be fully implemented.

“We are generally very satisfied that in legislative terms an awful lot of progress has been made,” Prodi said. “Those were decisions of historic importance.

“In our report we did say that Copenhagen criteria also require practical implementation at an administrative level of those rules, and that is something which we have not yet seen happen, and therefore in Copenhagen we would not be expecting to submit a date to start negotiations with Turkey.”