Turkish hopes of joining the EU appeared to be all but over after Germany gave warning it was ready to join France and Italy in outright opposition to the country's membership.
By Damien McElroy in Berlin
Published: 6:18PM BST 29 Sep 2009
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Free Democrats (FDP) are both hostile to the accession of the overwhelmingly Muslim country of 71 million.
The CDU is against the Turks joining for cultural reasons while the FDP leader, and probable new foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle has said the country's economy is too far below European standards to integrate comfortably with other members. With almost three million ethnic Turks living in Germany, many as citizens, Germany also fears there would be a flood of immigrants after Turkish accession.
Chancellor Angela Merkel has warned the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a phone call that Germany foreign policy was under review. An EU meeting to review the Turkish role in the unification of Cyprus in December will represent the first test of the policy.
The Turkish reaction to the German election result has been open dismay. The country's liberal broadsheet Milliyet summed up the mood in Ankara's political circles. It said: "Turkey is the loser".
The mass-market Aksam told Turks to be braced for a change in approach from Europe's biggest country. It said: "We should expect Merkel to sharpen her opposition to Turkey's membership."
The German chancellor shifted the country's stance at the outset of her first government in 2005 to a more sceptical position and has said she would prefer if Turkey was offered a "privileged position" not membership. But the Social Democrats, her previous coalition partners, blocked any move to join the other big continental powers in rejecting Turkey.
Turkey applied to join the forerunner of the EU as early as 1958 but bureaucratic hurdles have always kept it out.
Nicholas Sarkozy, the French president, has already moved to torpedo Turkish accession to the bloc by stopping ratification efforts in five key areas.
Brussels has imposed penalties on Turkey over its ban on flights and ships originating in the Greek-controlled part of Cyprus. Turkey's military still has up to 40,000 personnel in Cyprus, more than 30 years after it sent an expeditionary force to protect the Turkish population of the island. Cyprus became an EU member in 2004.
Huseyin Ozgurgan, the foreign minister of northern Cyprus, has complained that the EU is a "negative player" in the reunification negotiations.
PLUS: In a meeting in France with Sarkozy she said "It makes no sense if we take everytime more countries into the EU and become unreignable. So, there is no space for Turkey in the EU and there won't be any membership for Turkey in future. Sarkozy backed that up, saying Turkey wasn't European an thus no member candidate for the EU...
The only stronger supporters FOR a membership of Turkey are Spain, UK, Sweden, Poland, Slovenia and Romania as well as the Baltic States.
Biggest opponents: France, Germany, Netherlands, Austria, Italy, Luxembourg, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Czech Republic.
Topic: Angela Merkel win ends Turkey's EU hopes (Read 906 times)