Germany has urged right-wing EU politicians to keep religion out of talks on Turkey and the eastern Mediterranean territorial dispute.
"There's one criticism of Turkey I won't accept and that is when you say religion should weigh in our judgement of Turkey," Germany's EU affairs minister Michael Roth said in the European Parliament (EP) on Tuesday (15 September).
"We [the EU] are a community based on freedom of religion. We are not the exclusive club of one religion," he said.
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Andrew Rettman is EUobserver's foreign editor, writing about foreign and security issues since 2005. He is Polish, but grew up in the UK, and lives in Brussels. He has also written for The Guardian, The Times of London, and Intelligence Online.