European Parliament
Sacrédeus (PPE-DE ).
(SV)
Mr President, the European Parliament agrees totally with the political assessment of the Commission and of the Commissioner with responsibility for enlargement, Günter Verheugen, that a failure to reach agreement on Cyprus could pose a serious obstacle to Turkey’s ambitions to become a member of the European Union. Parliament maintains that the Cyprus question thus amounts to a major stumbling block in Turkey’s path to accession and a political test of its European resolve. Parliament hopes that the Turkish political authorities fully understand its significance.
I should like to cite a very important sentence in paragraph 63. ‘[It is] hard to imagine that Turkey could join the Union when it refuses to recognise a Union Member State, has military forces occupying part of that state’s territory, is boycotting that state’s ships, and is barring that state from its airspace.’

