Urgent Swedish Talks on Turkey, Macedonia EU Accession Bids

Sweden's Foreign Minister Carl Bildt (L) and his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu (R), during a photo session near the Bosphorus before a Turkey-EU ministerial meeting in Istanbul. Photo by BGNES

Carl Bildt, the Swedish Foreign Minister, has visited two of Bulgaria’s neighbors in last-ditch efforts to unblock Turkey’s EU accession talks and lift obstacles to opening negotiations with Macedonia.

Bildt represented his country’s EU Presidency at unannounced meetings in both countries on Thursday, in preparation for a critical EU foreign affairs meeting scheduled for December 7.

The ministers are expected to decide on the future of Turkey’s EU negations, and the opening of accession negotiations with Macedonia.

Turkey’s talks are blocked over the country’s refusal to open its ports and airports to Cyprus, as specified in the Ankara Protocol of 2004.

Macedonia is locked in an unresolved name dispute with Greece, with the latter set to veto any forthcoming decision by the EU concerning accession negotiations.

However, no breakthrough is apparent in the carefully-worded communiqué issued following Bildt's talks with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and EU Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagi? on Thursday.

Spain's State Secretary for Europe Diego Lopez Garrido, who traveled alongside Bildt on behalf of the upcoming Spanish EU Presidency, said his country was hoping to secure progress in Turkey's accession talks when it takes over the rolling presidency on January 1, 2010.

There has also been little public information from Skopje, the Macedonian capital. The official news agency MINA reported that Bildt had come to "discuss a way of avoiding a possible Greek veto on the beginning of accession talks with Brussels".

Bildt, however, commented that he did not expect a Greek veto on Macedonia's bid to join the European Union.

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