«Voting Yes is better than voting No»

On December 17, 2004, the heads of state of the European Union decided to begin negotiations on the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union. Despite the long announced duration of these negotiations and their uncertain results, many of us are exasperated by the very same idea of their start. This feeling is strengthened by the attitude of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who excluded another way out but the inclusion at the end of the negotiations and showed himself threatening.
The European Constitutional Treaty and its Charter of Fundamental Rights found a political project which is currently incompatible with the joining of Turkey. How could we integrate in our European political project a Turkish state whose present Prime Ministers have said: "The minarets are our bayonets, the domes our velvets, the mosques our barracks and the believers our soldiers?” The Constitution also defines a political project and creates an entity with a common security and defense. Including Turkey would cause a budgetary shock that would endanger the new Europe. In fact, that integration would cost the equivalent of the fourth part of the European Union budget. Such a situation would lead a dozen of regions of the new member states to lose the “right to grants.”
The Constitution is the best weapon considering the hypothesis of the inclusion of Turkey in the European Union. Besides, the checking of the French Constitution would make calling a referendum mandatory for any extension of the European Union to States whose joining negotiations were decided after July 1st. 2004. Therefore, the French will say the last word on Turkey.
However, denying the Turkish inclusion doesn’t mean abandoning it. We think Turkey might become the agglutinative pole of the Turkish-speaking peoples of Asia, the Caucasus, and the Middle East. Regarding this, the project of the European constitution (article 57) gives us a solution by granting a special status to those countries which are adjacent to Europe but are beyond its borders: the status of privileged partner. Rejecting the project of the Constitution would then deprive us of our best chances to reject the inclusion of Turkey in the Union. On the contrary, by voting Yes we adopt a new political project incompatible with the Turkish inclusion.