Either that South African news site understood it wrongly, or there have been contradictory statements by Portugal.
It is actually the opposite, that Portugal has vowed to support Turkey's bid. As reported by the BBC on a news article from the same date:
BBC NEWS | Europe | Portugal defends Turkey\'s EU bid
At present the issue is divided into two parties.
On the one hand there is the party of pro-Atlantists/Westernists, that support the entry of Turkey, like Britain, Poland, Portugal and Greece.
On the other hand there is Belgium, France, Germany and Austria, that are firm opposers to Turkey's entry.
I'm not sure about Italy. The government would be pro-Atlantist, but polls there suggest that there is a strong enough rejection to Turkey's bid.
Spain I'm afraid that the government will lean towards supporting Turkey's entrance. Not because of pro-Atlantism (that too even when the current government has been at odds with the US since it came to office), but because of Zapatero's anti-American best bid has been a support for a retarded agenda on his "alliance of civilizations", which Erdogan has endorsed when virtually no one else did probably forseeing a moment like the present.
The polls reported on this news item from a Turkish newspaper I think that come from the online Harris-Polls. Not reliable in my opinion, but nonetheless interesting to read:
Quote:
People in four countries belonging to the European Union (EU) oppose Turkey's potential entry, according to a poll by Harris Interactive published in the Financial Times. 71 percent of respondents in France, 66 percent in Germany, and 55 percent in Italy believe Turkey should not be invited to join the continental group.
Opposition to Turkey's eventual accession reaches 46 percent in both Britain and Spain, and 13 percent in the United States.
In January, Romania and Bulgaria became the last two countries to join the EU. In October 2005, Croatia and Turkey began accession talks, but neither country has been confirmed as an official future member. At least 40 percent of respondents in the five EU countries surveyed oppose a further enlargement of the 27-member group.
The polls were conducted in the form of online interviews with 6,169 adults in Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the United States between May 31 to June 12, 2007. The margin of error was 3 percent.
On Jun. 13, Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema expressed Italy's support for Turkey's bid to join the EU during a meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Ankara. D'Alema declared: "I am convinced that the best way to avoid that in this country an Islamism which is foreign to the tradition of modern Turkey prevails or that an anti-European, regressive nationalism takes hold, is for Europe to open up to Turkey. (...) We are here to convey a message to all political forces and most of all to the public opinion: dialogue must continue in view of a possible, if not upcoming, integration of Turkey in Europe."
The New Anatolian
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Here is a shot of Harris Poll on June 18, 2007:
source: http://www.harrisinteractive.com/news/allnewsbydate.asp?NewsID=1228
Hopefully strong disagreement over Turkey's entry will provoke a crisis in the European Union.