European Union: Turkish Accession

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend makes some important points. I reiterate that the UK remains the strongest supporter of Turkey’s EU membership bid. Turkey itself has repeatedly reaffirmed its strategic goal of joining the European Union, most recently in February of this year. It has the sixth largest economy in Europe and is a key NATO ally. Therefore, we will do all we can to progress its membership.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, it is surely welcome that the intercommunal talks on Cyprus have now recommenced. Does the Minister agree that the positive support of Turkey for this process would be a major boost to its EU ambitions?

[Baroness Warsi]

As noble Lords will be aware, a number of chapters have been politically blocked by, among others, Cyprus. That is one of the reasons for the lack of progress. Noble Lords will be pleased to hear that on 11 February the leaders of the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities respectively met under United Nations auspices. Since then there has been further progress, with the two negotiators meeting several times, and on 27 February they broke new ground when the Greek Cypriot negotiator held talks in Ankara and the Turkish Cypriot negotiator did the same in Athens. That progress is to be welcomed.