EU told to end membership talks with Ankara

Two senior German conservative politicians have called for the European Union to end discussions with Turkey about EU membership after a vote that handed new powers to Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan.
Norbert Roettgen, a member of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and head of the foreign affairs committee, said failing to issue consequences after the referendum vote would hurt Europe.
"We would damage the credibility of Europe if we failed to respond to Turkey's decision against democracy, against the rule of law ... if we continue to hold fast to the fiction of accession for a country with such a government and such a constitution," Roettgen told broadcaster Deutschlandfunk in an interview to air on Sunday. He said pretending that Turkey could join the EU would also prevent Europe from forging a new, more realistic relationship with Turkey.
Turks voted a week ago by a narrow margin to abolish the post of prime minister and concentrate power in the hands of the president, the biggest overhaul of Turkey's political system since the modern state was established nearly a century ago.
The results have been challenged in court by Turkey's main opposition party, and independent election monitors from the Council of Europe and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe have questioned the vote.
Joachim Herrmann, the interior minister of Bavaria and a member of the CDU's Bavarian sister party, said EU accession talks for Turkey should be ended, not paused. "It's about time that the EU membership negotiations are ended," Herrmann told the German newspaper Bild am Sonntag. "We have to stop kidding ourselves: There are no common perspectives with the Turkey of Erdogan."