"I hope that newly elected Pope Benedict XVI will re-consider his position on Turkey's EU membership", Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan stated, Yerkir online reports. Leading Turkish editions recollected Pope's anti-Turkish statements. For example, in 2004 in an interview with the newspaper Le Figaro, when asked about Turkey's effort to join the European Union Cardinal Ratzinger stated, "Turkey had always been in permanent contrast to Europe and linking it to Europe would be a mistake". As reported by NTV Turkish TV Company, Erdogan noted that at that time Cardinal Ratzinger expressed "his personal opinion".