The French President Nicola Sarkozy stated Friday he had always been against Turkey's potential EU accession. Photo by Yuliana Nikolova (Sofia Photo Agency)
The French President Nicola Sarkozy declared Friday in an interview that Turkey was not in Europe and that he had always been opposed to its membership in the EU.
In an interview regarding his first year in office, Sarkozy also said he would organize a national referendum to decide on France's position if Turkey was at some point about to join the EU, europe.bg reported.
The French President did stress, however, that he did not favor the organizing of referenda for every potential new EU member.
"If tomorrow Switzerland requests to join the EU, no one will dispute the fact that it is European, and no one will call a referendum", Sarkozy said.
The EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn in turn reminded that the EU had promised the countries from the Western Balkans that they would be allowed to join, and that the Union was currently negotiating with Turkey.
Rehn expects Turkey would become a EU member within 10-15 if it continued with the course of reforms.