Parliament speaker warns against racism in Europe

WARSAW - Anatolia News Agency

The EU needs to secure social and cultural integration besides political and economic ones, Çiçek says. AA photo

Europe needs to ensure social and cultural integration to ward off “tendencies contradicting European values,” Turkish Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek said April 20.

“There is no place in today’s Europe for racism, xenophobia, Islamophobia and discrimination. It is a task for all of us to prevent further dissemination of such thoughts,” Çiçek told a Warsaw conference of EU parliament heads.

Cultural integration
Çiçek said the EU needed to secure social and cultural integration besides political and economic ones, warning that EU leaders should not allow the recession to force Europe to “turn in on itself.”

Çiçek said Turkey’s EU membership would help Europe overcome the recession as well as bring the Union’s political, economic and social strength to a vast geography. “The economic and financial recession you are in should trigger rather than hamper the Union’s enlargement drive. In fact, the crisis is not just economic. The EU is no longer discussing the stability of the Euro but also its own future,” Çiçek said.