The EU should offer Turkey an alternative to membership, the leader of Germany's Christian Democratic opposition said yesterday.
Speaking before a two-day congress of the European People's Party (EPP), which groups conservative parties from across the bloc, Ms Angela Merkel said Turkey's EU application would play a role in European Parliament elections in June.
EU leaders are due to decide next December whether to give Turkey a date for starting accession negotiations, a politically sensitive choice against a backdrop of growing anti-immigration and anti-Muslim sentiment in many European countries.
"We should not give Turkey any false promises, because then there will be disappointment," said Ms Merkel, leader of the CDU.
"We want a special partnership, a third way with Turkey, because for security and geopolitical reasons it is important for us to have close relations with Turkey."
The EPP is the largest political group in the outgoing European Parliament and the CDU, together with its German sister-party the Christian Social Union, holds the most seats in the assembly.
Germany has the largest Turkish minority in the Union with at least two million Turks living there.
Overwhelmingly Muslim Turkey first sought to join in 1963, but has yet to start accession talks with the EU which cites human rights as the main concern blocking negotiations.
Ms Merkel said it was time to be realistic and tell Ankara what it could, and could not, achieve in relations with the EU.
The Czech government nominated environmentalist and former minister Mr Milos Kuzvart to be its EU commissioner yesterday, overruling objections from junior partners in Mr Vladimir Spidla's coalition cabinet.Confirmation of the nomination of Mr Kuzvart (43) by the European Commission is largely a formality. He will begin his initial six-month appointment when the Czechs join the Union in May. - (Reuters)