Bot slams French, Austrian referendum plans on Turkey

Such moves could block Turkey’s accession to the EU, Netherlands Foreign Minister Ben Bot said Sunday, only two days after EU leaders agreed to set a date, October 3 2005, to open membership talks with Ankara.
“I do not think it’s very fair to move the goal posts in the middle of a match,” Bot said on Dutch television. “We have never said to the Turks, neither in 1999 nor in 2002, that a referendum would lie at the end of the process. We have to be fair.”
Bot, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the EU, has been a constant supporter of Turkey’s accession bid, and helped broker the agreement signed by the bloc’s leaders at their Brussels summit last week.