Brand new constitution a must for Turkey's EU membership

Deputy Director of the CER, Katinka Barysch, said although the constitutional amendments were mostly an improvement, they were not enough to turn Turkey into a fully functioning democracy. "For that Turkey will indeed need a new constitution, one that rests on a broad social and political consensus. And it needs effective, impartial implementation of its constitution and laws. This is still a long process," she said... Speaking about the commitment of the EU officials in taking positive steps regarding Turkey's EU membership, Barysch said the fact that Turkey had -- after years of doing very little -- shown that it could adopt useful reforms would disarm those in the EU who had argued that the stalling of Turkey's accession process was Turkey's fault. She said this would only highlight how little the EU had left to negotiate, given how many of the chapters are blocked by the EU and its member-states. "So the referendum has put the ball back into the EU's court. It has also re-focused attention on Cyprus where the cause of many of the blockages lie."