Text tabled : A7-0238/2010

  Jean-Luc Mélenchon (GUE/NGL), in writing. – (FR) Turkey, like all states, is a sovereign state and, as such, must be respected. It is unacceptable for the European Union to take the liberty of threatening it with the suspension of negotiations on what is, moreover, a rather undesirable accession given the top-down social and fiscal harmonisation that is required.

This House would be unworthy of the friendship shown towards it by the Turkish people if it voted for a report which obliges them to destroy their agricultural jobs (50% of the jobs in Turkey) through the abolition of all taxes on agricultural produce, and which promotes the rights of investors over those of the people. I am voting against this text.