EU: Elections are over, now it’s time for reforms

EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn said local elections in Turkey were time-consuming for the government -- as in all countries -- but the elections are finished, so they must focus on reform.

"We expect Erdoğan to keep his promises of ‘bold reforms,'" Rehn said at a meeting of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee held in Brussels on Tuesday.

This was in reference to Erdoğan's rare visit to Brussels in January -- the first in four years -- when he clearly stated that his government is strongly committed to revitalizing the reform process to speed up Turkey's European Union membership bid.

During his high-level talks with EU officials, Erdoğan had declared that he was recommitting his government to an intensive reform process in 2009.

Hannes Swoboda, vice chairman of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament, said elections gave the governing Justice and Development Party (AK Party) a message to continue with the reform process. "It cannot be expected that reforms would please everybody but even though there is some decrease in the votes that the AK Party garnered, it still received a high percentage of the vote. So the government has a strong mandate to continue with the reforms," Swoboda said, adding that the EU's short-term expectation is for the government to reform the Constitution. He also said the Kurdish issue is a top priority for the EU. "EU also expects positive steps in Turkey's relations with Armenia," he said.

Vural Öger, a German member of the European Parliament from the Socialist Group, said the public's message to the AK Party is: "Bring back your performance in 2002-2005. We miss that period."

"If the government says that they took a number of initiatives regarding the Kurdish issue, but it did not work, that would be the wrong answer. This would please the terrorists," Öger said in regards to Turkey's terrorism problem with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

"The results show that for the people of the region, the identity problem is a big issue and their problems are not just related to good municipal services and economy," he said.

According to Joost Lagendijk, co-chairman of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, the Kurdish conference to be held in April in Arbil, the capital of the regional Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, will be an important turning point to test Turkey's reaction.

"The government should not misread the election results in the Southeast but continue with its initiatives. The Kurdish people should be convinced that Kurdish television was not an election investment," he said.

He also said Brussels will be watching the developments regarding Turkey's relations with Armenia.

Regarding the investigation into Ergenekon, a neo-nationalist gang believed to be the extension of a clandestine network of groups with members in the armed forces, Lagendijk said the EU expects the process to be within the limits of the rule of law.

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, who is shadow rapporteur for Turkey in the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE), also mentioned the investigation into Ergenekon and said if the allegations turn out to be true, that would be "scandalous."

The EU leaders also pointed out that 2009 will be a difficult year for Turkey because of the unresolved Cyprus problem. They added that if Turkey does not speed up reforms, Germany might use this obstacle against Turkey, especially in consideration of the fact that there are elections in Germany in September.