Merkel plans to block Turkey's bid to join EU

The Christian Democrat Union (CDU) have disclosed that Mrs Merkel sent a letter to EU leaders, including Tony Blair, and conservative party chiefs asking them to adopt her party's proposals to scale down Turkish EU membership to mere associate or "privileged partnership" status.

"We are firmly convinced that Turkey's membership would overtax the EU economically and socially and endanger the process of European integration," Mrs Merkel wrote in the letter.

The move comes only days before EU foreign ministers meet on 1 September, to begindiscussions on Turkish accession to the Union before full negotiations begin on 3 October.

It also appeared timed to coincide with a crucial stage in Mrs Merkel's election bid. Tomorrow, she will appear before members of her opposition Christian Democrats at a special conference in the Ruhr city of Dortmund which will launch the party's final push for victory in the 18 September poll.

Opinion polls suggested yesterday that Mrs Merkel was on course to win. Her party was 13 percentage points ahead of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's ruling Social Democrats.

Despite support for Turkey's full EU membership from several leading Christian Democrats, including the formerchancellor Helmut Köhl, Mrs Merkel appears intent on developing the ban into an important feature of her campaign. Last week, influential CDU figures called for greater emphasis to be applied to opposition to Turkish EU membership during the final weeks of the party's campaign.

Germany is home to 1.7 million Turks, the majority of whom came to the country as "guest workers" from the 1960s onwards. Opinion polls have shown repeatedly that a majority of Germans fear being swamped by a new influx, should Ankara be given full EU status.

Turkey has so far counted on Mr Schröder's support for its EU bid and regards Germany as its chief European ally. The prospect of a future German conservative government, which is opposed to its European ambitions, has caused alarm and anger in Ankara.

The policy also threatens to undermine the conservatives' hoped-for "new start" in German-US relations, which suffered their worst crisis in 60 years through Mr Schröder's outright opposition to the Iraq war. President George Bush has indicated that he regards Turkish membership of the EU as an important part of attempts to stabilise the region.

Brussels has in the past made it clear that Turkey has been a candidate for full EU membership for six years and that it is too late to consider reducing its option to that of "privileged partnership" status.