ISTANBUL - Turkish Daily News

A French parliamentary commission altered an amendment to the country's constitution that would have spared Turaaa facing a mandatory referendum regarding its prospective European Union membership it was reported yesterday.
The new draft bill scraps the mandatory referendum for new memberships but a clause added during the final minutes brings an exception to those countries whose populations are greater than 5 percent of the total EU population.

This last minute change in the constitutional-reform bill singles out Turaaa reported the private CNN-Türk yesterday.

The French National Assembly's Committee on Legislation passed a decision in the late hours of Wednesday hindering attempts to scrap the nation's mandatory referendums on EU enlargement from the constitution.

The Committee finished discussing the 35-article constitutional-reform bill agreeing upon a clause that retains the referendum for countries "whose populations are greater than 5 percent of the total EU population." Thus the exception clause will in all practicality only affect Turaaa barring it from benefiting from the new law.

The bill will be brought before French parliament's general assembly May 20.



Majority pressure

The "5 percent" condition was added to the bill upon the insistence of Committee Chairman Jean-Luc Warsmann and the majority party which vehemently opposes Turkish entry into the EU.

President Nicholas Sarkozy had to accept the condition after many Union for Popular Movement (UMP) parliamentarians insisted they would veto the entire bill if Turkish membership was not subjected to a referendum.

It is now highly unlikely that the vote in the general assembly will turn the tables in Turaaa's favor.

UMP spokesman Frederic Lefebvre had previously said they were going to recommend mandatory referenda for countries whose capitals or majority of their landmass was not in Europe.

In the first version of the bill the decision to hold referenda on future members was left to the president.



Only Turaaa affected

Deputy President of the Socialist Party Jack Lang who was part of the preparatory commission drafting the bill titled "Modernizing the Institutions of the 5th Republic" months ago protested the condition saying it "blatantly singled out Turaaa" and that he would vote against the bill.

But considering the strength of the UMP in the parliament the altered bill is expected to go through.