Brussels, 07/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - Upon arriving at the EU-Turkey summit on Monday 7 March, Turkey's Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu connected his country's management of the migration crisis with Turkey's accession to the EU.
“We are ready to work with the EU. We are also ready to be members of the EU”, he said as he arrived, stating that the summit would be focused on illegal migration but also on the EU accession process. He hoped that this summit would be “a success story and a turning point in our relations”.
At the end of the first working session, however, European Parliament President Martin Schulz separated the two issues. “There is an attempt (by the Turks) to connect the issues connected to the refugees with the accession process (…) For parliamentarians it's clear that there is a need to separate accession and other issues about opening new chapters from the short term management of the refugee crisis”, he said, at the end of his press conference. He added that opening chapters “should not be a pre-condition, by one party, for tackling the refugee crisis”.
According to a European source, Davutoglu is reported to have asked for the opening of negotiation chapters - the same ones as in November 2015 (Chapter 15 on energy, 23 on fundamental rights and the judicial apparatus, 24 on security, freedom and justice, 26 on education, and 31 on foreign policy). This source stated that the Commission's preparatory work on these chapters was due to be concluded “relatively quickly”. However, the Republic of Cyprus is still blocking these chapters. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)