On Monday 9 January, Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu called for additional EU accession negotiation chapter to be opened.
During a conference in Ankara that brought together Turkish ambassadors, he called for "artificial obstacles" to Turkey's accession to be lifted. Currently, 16 out of 35 chapters are open and one is provisionally closed. In December, the member states decided that no new chapter opening should be planned, due to the response of the Turkish government to the attempted coup in July, which the EU member states deemed disproportionate. Both the European Parliament and Austria had called for Turkey's EU accession negotiations to be frozen (see EUROPE 11688). Furthermore, several chapters are being blocked due to Turkey's position as regards the Republic of Cyprus.
In his speech, Çavuşoğlu also called for the immediate implementation of visa liberalisation in order to enable Turks to travel visa-free in the EU. While this visa liberalisation is part of the EU-Turkey migration pact, Turkey has not yet fulfilled all the criteria required and must, in particular, change its counter-terrorism legislation.
"We have played an important role in Europe's past and we will do so in the future. Europe without Turkey is not complete", Çavuşoğlu stated.
At the same conference, Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that "EU accession remains a strategic choice for Ankara". He warned, however, that his country "would not accept incoherent policies and double standards from the EU on this". (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)