Right-Wing Parties Urge Europe-Wide Referendum on Turkey
Bulgaria in EU | October 23, 2010, Saturday // 18:37| views
Ataka leader Siderov shown at a rally in Plovdiv Wednesday night. Photo by BGNES
Several right-wing European parties have called for a European-wide referendum against Turkey's membership in the European Union (EU).
"Europe will be heading along a dramatic wrong path if non-European countries are acceded into the European Union", Heinz-Christian Strache, head of the Freedom Party of Austria (FPO), told journalists in Vienna after talks with colleague in Belgium, Slovakia, Italy, Denmark, and Sweden.
"This would be the end of the European Union. It would be the beginning of a Euro-Asian-African union which stands completely in opposition to the European peace project and therefore should not be permitted to happen," the Austrian right-wing politician declared.
In Bulgaria, the issue has turned into the apple of discord for the allies of the ruling party. The informal ruling coalition between the center-right GERB party and the nationalists from Ataka suffered earlier this week serious cracks as the latter party declared itself strongly against Turkey's EU membership.
After on Wednesday the Bulgarian Parliament – with the votes of the ruling party GERB and the opposition ethnic Turkish party DPS (Movement for Rights and Freedoms) – decided not to hold a vote on whether to schedule a referendum on Turkey's EU membership, the Ataka leader Volen Siderov threatened to back out his party's support for the Borisov Cabinet.
The referendum on Turkey's EU accession has been long demanded by Ataka and by another nationalist formation, the more marginal VMRO party, which is actually at odds with the most popular nationalist formation Ataka.
After a visit of Turkish PM Erdogan to Sofia in early October, at which Bulgarian PM Borisov declared principled support fro Turkey's EU accession, the nationalists from Ataka showed up in Parliament with special T-shirts saying "No to Turkey in the EU", and warned that the issue could cause problems between them and GERB.
Siderov's Ataka (meaning "Attack") party has been the one unconditional and staunch backer of the minority government of GERB and PM Borisov. GERB has only 117 MPs in Parliament, 4 short of a majority, while Ataka has 21 MPs. The center-right Blue Coalition, with 14 MPs, has been a more reluctant ally to Borisov's GERB, criticizing the government on numerous occasions.
It is unclear whether Ataka's potential official withdrawal of support for the Borisov government would bring it down as GERB made no formal coalition agreements when it formed the Cabinet back in 2009, with Borisov insisting that he wanted to assume the full responsibility for the government of the country.
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