Verbatim report of proceedings

Tuesday, 12 March 2019 - Strasbourg

2018 Report on Turkey (debate)

  Nedzhmi Ali (ALDE). – Mr President, the final text of the 2018 report on Turkey doesn’t help to continue a constructive dialogue between the EU and our strategic partner. Suspension of the negotiation process is unacceptable for us. Before the final decision we need to take into account the progress made by Turkey recently.

On 11 December 2018, the fifth meeting of the Reform Action Group (RAG), held in Ankara, announced that Turkey would decisively continue its efforts to align with EU standards despite political obstructions in the negotiations. Ankara has set the goal of achieving closure of the monitoring procedure of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. The Ministry of Justice intends to update the Judicial Reform Strategy together with the Council of Europe and the EU. To strengthen the protection of fundamental human rights, the RAG plans to update the Action Plan on the Prevention of the Violation of the European Convention on Human Rights.

A proposal to suspend the negotiation process – even formally – will be received negatively by Turkish society: that was made clear during the recent meeting in Ankara of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, where the EU is seen as a friendly community. In the light of the upcoming elections in Europe and in Turkey, we need to be careful about the kind of messages we are sending to voters.