TURKEY: The Turkish Prime Minister, Mr Racep Tayyip Erdogan, has said full EU membership is the only acceptable outcome of accession negotiations between Ankara and Brussels even if it takes "10 or 15 years".
The European Commission has criticised Ankara's reform progress but nevertheless recommends in a leaked copy of a report to be presented on Wednesday, that accession negotiations should commence.
"The only negotiation aim we accept is full membership. There is no third way for us, no partnership with conditions or anything like that.
"To even bring something like that into talks is underhand," said Mr Erdogan to Der Spiegel magazine.
The Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder, a staunch supporter of Turkey's EU ambitions, told journalists yesterday after talks with the Turkish Prime Minister: "We are both of the opinion that this is about accession negotiations and nothing else."
Mr Erdogan, in Berlin to accept a "European of the Year" award from a German foundation, dismissed the suggestion of the French President, Mr Jacques Chirac, to ratify the EU constitution before discussing Turkey.
Mr Erdogan said a "change in mentality" was necessary among existing EU members.
"We've done our homework. It's up to the EU now to keep their end of the deal," he told journalists in Berlin.
Despite the expected green light on Wednesday, the EU Enlargement Commissioner, Mr Günther Verheugen, said Wednesday's report would contain some surprises.
"The report about the state of reforms in Turkey has turned out extremely critical, much more critical than most observers expected," Mr Verheugen told Bild am Sonntag newspaper yesterday.
"No one will be able to say that anything was glossed over or concealed. It will not be easy for Turkey to swallow everything we have written."
According to a copy of the report leaked to Bild, the Commission praises Ankara's progress with freedom of expression, the rights of women and minorities but expresses continued concern about the tackling of torture. "Although torture is no longer systematic, many cases continue to come to light and further efforts are needed to end this practice," according to the leaked report.
German public opinion is extremely divided and confused, as is clear from opinion surveys: the Emnid polling agency found last month that just a third of Germans are in favour of Turkey joining the EU with 57 per cent against.
However nearly the same percentage, 55 per cent, of those questioned in another survey for public television favoured Turkey's "medium to long-term accession" with 41 per cent against.
Turkey's EU accession hopes could be a deciding factor in Germany's 2006 general election. Four decades after the first Gastarbeiter arrived in Germany, the Turkish community here now numbers 2.5 million with 700,000 now holding German passports.
At the last general election, two thirds of the estimated 300,000 voters of Turkish origin backed Mr Schröder's Social Democratic Party (SPD). CDU analysts admit that losing the Turkish vote was a leading factor in their close election defeat in 2002.
It's unlikely they will be wooed ahead of the general election by the CDU, once for and now against full EU membership for Turkey.
The CDU leader, Dr Angela Merkel, has spent the last weeks trying to secure support among other European conservative leaders for her proposal of a "privileged partnership" for Turkey.
Mr Edmund Stoiber, Bavaria's conservative state premier, has said the EU isn't a "Christian club" but warned that Turkey's accession would "overwhelm" the EU as a political union and reduce its public acceptance.
Enlargement Commissioner, Mr Verheugen, himself a German SPD politician, has criticised media reports that Turkey's accession would result in mass emigration westwards of Turkish nationals or a price tag of €28 billion, a quarter of which would be paid by German taxpayers.
"An accession treaty can ensure that neither national budgets nor common budget is overwhelmed," he said.