Brussels, 24/06/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 23 July, Greece's Minister for Foreign Affairs Evangelos Venizelos underlined the importance of relaunching Turkey's EU accession negotiations after the Turkish presidential elections in August 2014 - elections which will take place for the first time by universal suffrage. “The EU and the Hellenic Presidency hold high expectations that Turkey, after the upcoming presidential elections, would return to the reform process with a new, decisive dynamic which would enable the accession negotiations [to] regain momentum and pave the way for Turkey's European future”, Venizelos said after the EU-Turkey Association Council.
Venizelos and Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy Stefan Füle once again called on Turkey to make reforms and underlined their concerns as regards the independence of its judiciary, its separation of powers and freedom of expression. “The massive redeployments and redundancies in the police, the judicial apparatus and the public sector over recent months are also a subject of serious concern”, said Füle. He encouraged Ankara to respond to all the allegations of corruption in a “transparent and impartial” way. In addition, the EU underlined the importance of working on the issue of the reunification of Cyprus.
Turkey's Minister for European Affairs Mevlut Cavusoglu stated it was “necessary to give a chance to the negotiations process”. “The EU must have a strategic approach to the process, instead of counting on a rather short-term vision of certain member states”, he said, criticising the fact that 17 negotiation chapters remain blocked for - in his opinion - political reasons. “All the chapters must be opened without delay”, he said. (CG)