France names five problem areas of Turkey-EU talks

PARIS, Aug 30 (Reuters) France spelled out today five areas of Turkey's accession talks with the European Union that it wants to hold up because they assume the large, poor, mainly Muslim nation will eventually join the 27-nation bloc.

They include agricultural subsidies and regional aid -- the EU's two biggest spending programmes -- as well as the euro and Turkey's place in institutions such as the European Parliament, and European citizenship rights for Turks.

In a speech on Monday setting out his foreign policy goals, President Nicolas Sarkozy said France would allow talks with Ankara to continue as long as one possible outcome was the offer of a close association with the EU rather than membership.

However, Paris said it has a problem with five of the 35 areas, or ''chapters'', into which negotiations are divided, arguing that they assume an outcome of full membership.

''Evidently, there are a certain number of subjects where negotiations would objectively lead to membership,'' Sarkozy's spokesman David Martinon told a weekly news conference.

''Among those, if you think about it, there must of course be the chapter or the package or the subject of monetary and economic union, there are the provisions relating to European citizenship ... there is institutions, there is the Common Agricultural Policy and there is regional policy and structural funds,'' he said.

The EU agreed unanimously in 2004 to open negotiations with Turkey with the aim of membership, and the executive European Commission rejects the distinction made by France between chapters that imply membership and others that do not.

However, the Commission welcomed Sarkozy's willingness to allow talks with Ankara to go forward, and officials said there was a tacit understanding that the EU executive would not recommend opening talks on chapters it knew Paris opposed.

In June, France blocked the opening of talks between Ankara and Brussels on economic and monetary policy -- the groundwork for Turkey to eventually adopt the euro -- underlining Sarkozy's oft repeated opposition to Turkey joining the EU.

Government spokesman Laurent Wauquiez said the five problem areas should be discussed after the 30 other chapters.

Asked when that was, Martinon said: ''When we will have settled the 30 others.'' The EU froze negotiations with Turkey in eight policy areas -- including agriculture and rural development -- last December to punish Ankara for its refusal to open its ports and airports to traffic from EU member Cyprus.

Sarkozy made clear on Monday he would allow talks go ahead on other policy areas provided a group of ''wise people'' is set up to discuss the longer-term future of Europe, including how far its borders should stretch.

He said the panel should report back before European Parliament elections in 2009.

REUTERS PD VC1930