On Friday 24 November, the European Commission reminded Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan that the European Union and Turkey both had to respect the commitments taken as part of their agreement in March to manage the migration crisis.
Earlier in the day, Erdoğan had threatened to let thousands of migrants leave for the EU in response to the European Parliament's resolution approved on Thursday 24 November, which calls for a freeze on Turkey's EU accession negotiations in order to sanction the authoritarian drift of the Turkish regime (see EUROPE 11675). "Listen to me carefully. If you go any further, these borders will open up. Get that into your head!", Erdoğan said in a speech in Istanbul.
"We are fully committed to implementation of the EU-Turkey agreement. We have said several times that this is a contract of mutual trust and implementation. We expect the two parties to continue implementing their respective obligations", Commission spokesperson Margaritis Schinas stated. He refused to say whether this agreement on migration was linked to the issue of accession negotiations, but with regard to the accession negotiations he said he thought "a more comprehensive discussion" was needed "between the [European] institutions on the path to follow".
Progress report in December on visa liberalisation
As regards the visa liberalisation regime for Turkish citizens, which is included in the EU-Turkey agreement of 18 March (see EUROPE 11515), the Commission will publish a new progress report in December, ahead of the European summit. The report will again focus on implementation of this agreement.
At the end of September, the Commission noted that Turkey had still not fulfilled seven remaining criteria, including bringing Turkish counter-terrorism closer to European standards (see EUROPE 11634). This delay in granting the visa-waiver regime which, before the summer and failed coup of 15 July, had been planned for the end of October (then for the end of the year), has also led certain Turkish leaders to utter threats at the EU about the resumption of migrant flows.
Turkey's Foreign Minister Ömer Çelik will be in Brussels next week, Schinas has announced. The meeting could possibly bring progress on the visa question. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)