COPENHAGEN, April 21: A Danish television documentary charting three months of behind-the-scenes dealings by European Union leaders has kicked up a storm ahead of its broadcast on Tuesday.

The sharpest controversy surrounds the film’s suggestion that German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer privately tried to block Turkey’s bid for EU membership, which he publicly claimed to support.

Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen agreed to let a camera crew come on board for the last half of his country’s six-month EU presidency, culminating with a landmark enlargement summit at which 10 new countries were invited to join the bloc.

Although Rasmussen, committed to transparency in government, has viewed and approved “The Road to Europe” ahead of its airing on the Danish DR1 television channel, some of his European counterparts may be less happy at their starring roles in the programme.

Fischer for example is painted in an unfavourable light by Danish Foreign Minister Per Stig Moeller.

“Did I tell you that Joschka Fischer had three different points of view in less than 12 hours on the question of Turkey’s application,” Moeller asks Rasmussen in the documentary.

“First he told me that Turkey would never be a member of the European Union. Then, that we needed to find some form of membership. And finally (he said): ‘No, no, forget about it, those were just ideas’,” Moeller is shown saying.

Rasmussen says: “There is not a complete match between what they (Germany) say in public, and their real attitude.”

Pre-released scenes from the film have drawn acid response from Turkish officials.

A further source of embarrassment for Berlin is the documentary’s suggestion that Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder nearly ruined a deal with Poland, which negotiated fiercely at the Copenhagen summit to secure favourable entry terms.

At another summit, the documentary shows Rasmussen standing up to Russian President Vladimir Putin, insisting he take questions from hostile journalists about the situation in the breakaway republic of Chechnya.

Having agreed to the grilling, Putin is later seen muttering: “They are bandits, all of them.”—AFP