European lawmakers to debate way forward with Turkey
European lawmakers on Tuesday are due to discuss the reports by the Commission and Parliament on the progress of EU-Turkish relations in 2019 and 2020 before voting on a resolution that will determine the way forward after accession negotiations were frozen in June 2018.
The European People’s Party (EPP) Group, the largest in the House, has said that it believes accession talks with Turkey must be “formally suspended if the current negative trend is not urgently and consistently reversed.”
“As long as President Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues to provoke the EU and its member-states, violates the territorial integrity of Greece and Cyprus and veers Turkey away from European standards, from the rule of law and fundamental human rights, there is no perspective for improved relations,” an EPP spokesman was quoted by The Parliament Magazine as saying.
“This is the toughest parliamentary report ever on the situation in the country and a reflection of the serious and continued backsliding in the areas of the rule of law and human rights in Turkey in the last two year,” Socialist MEP Nacho Sanchez Amor was also quoted as saying.
“The report sends clear messages to both Turkey and the other EU institutions and member-states: without urgent progress in the human rights and the rule of law situation in Turkey, there can be no improvement in EU-Turkey relations,” he added, according to The Parliament Magazine.
