TURKEY'S hopes of joining the European Union could be undermined by its agreement to allow a consortium led by BP to build a controversial oil pipeline connecting Azerbaijan with the Mediterranean, the European Commission has warned.
The proposed pipeline, which would span the 1,760 kilometres between Azerbaijan's capital Baku and the coastal Turkish city of Ceyhan, has provoked anger from environmental and human rights organisations who fear it will destroy vast tracts of Turkish countryside and lead to increased repression against Kurds and other minorities living along the route.
The BP-led consortium that hopes to build the pipeline has already signed an agreement with the Turkish Government which will allow them to demand protection from security forces - and includes a commitment that Turkey will introduce no new laws for environmental or social reasons that could undermine the economic success of the project.
London Euro-MP Jean Lambert, who brought the pipeline to the attention of the European Commission last month, said: "The planned pipeline - and the agreement between the BP-led consortium and the Turkish Government - threatens to undermine democracy, human rights and the protection of Turkey' s Kurdish minority.
"By insisting on an agreement not to enact any new laws designed to protect the environment, the consortium has effectively undermined the freedom of a supposedly democratic sovereign state, which will no longer be able to respond to the wishes of the citizens that elected it."
The European Commission admitted this week that any negative effects of the pipeline - or the agreement on new laws and security - would have a direct bearing on Turkey's goal of joining the EU.
In response to a question raised by Mrs Lambert over whether the agreement between BP and Turkey would call into question the conditions for EU membership - known as the Copenhagen Criteria - on democracy, human rights and protection of minorities, European Enlargement Commissioner Gunter Verheugen agreed it might.
"The Commission has received various reports about the implications of this proposed pipeline for the environment and the public," said Mr Verheugen.
"Any negative development will have to be seen in the light of the Copenhagen criteria for accession, including the political criteria concerning human rights and the protection of minorities.
"We will continue to monitor the implementation of this project in respect of these conditions."
Mrs Lambert, who is a member of the European Parliament's Civil Liberties Committee and who has strong links with Kurdish communities in her London constituency, welcomed the Commission's commitment to monitor the pipeline project.
"The oil companies are interfering in the freedom of action of a sovereign state and this is likely to result in Turkey failing to meet EU standards on human rights, democracy and environmental protection," she said.
"Turkey's desire to join the EU, and its awareness that the EU is watching, will provide some safeguards. Perhaps more worrying is that no-one's there to hold Azerbaijan, or BP and the other oil companies involved, to account.
"Can it be that the only brake on corporate attempts to undermine democracy and human rights in pursuit of profit is BP's shareholders?"
ENDS
Link to the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline campaign
For more information please contact Ben Duncan on 020 7407
6280, 07973 823358 or at press@greenmeps.org.uk