Court of Auditors report on pre-accession support to Turkey

17.4.2018

Question for written answer E-002154-18
to the Commission
Rule 130
Marietje Schaake (ALDE)

A Court of Auditor’s (CoA) report released today on EU pre-accession assistance to Turkey finds that funds spent have ‘barely’ and ‘insufficiently’ addressed fundamental needs in Turkey in the rule of law and governance sectors, and in relation to the independence and impartiality of justice, press freedom and the fight against high level corruption.

The report also concluded that ‘the Commission had made little use of IPA conditionality’.

Is the Commissioner aware of this publication, and if so, does he concur with its conclusions? To what extent do they correspond to the previous findings of the external evaluation conducted on pre-accession assistance funds (IPA I and II) as well as the Commission’s mid‐term review?

What concrete action will the Commission take to ensure that the highlighted shortcomings will be remedied for the years remaining under the current MFF, and can the Commissioner provide a detailed explanation as to how all findings related to pre-accession funding, including those in today’s CoA report, and the external evaluation will feed into the way pre-accession funds will be organised in the next MFF?

Looking at the current situation in Turkey, as well as the conclusion that there is a ‘lack of political will’ on the side of the Turkish authorities, why has the Commission never made use of the conditionality principle explicitly contained in the pre-accession regulation?