On Thursday 27 July, Austria's Chancellor Christian Kern said it was important to say that Turkey is not a candidate for EU membership.
"It must be legitimate to say: you are quite simply not an accession candidate", Kern stated when he was asked about Turkey in an interview with German newspaper Frankfuter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ). Since the attempted coup in Turkey, Austria has repeatedly called for Turkey's EU accession negotiations to be suspended.
In Kern's view, this is a "question of credibility". "We pay Turkey more than €3 billion for accession. We cannot pay for the implementation of legal structures and experience the opposite. We cannot explain that to German and Austrian taxpayers", he said, adding that it was a different issue from that of aid to Syrian refugees – an area in which Turkey is "impeccable".
European Commissioner for Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn stated on 24 July that while the pre-accession funds for Turkey for the 2014-2020 period amounted to €4.2 billion, only €190 million has thus far been paid out.
Kern criticised the rule of law situation in Turkey. "What is happening with regard to human rights is totally unacceptable", he said, adding that "Turkey has crossed nearly all the red lines". He defined the way Ankara treats human rights defenders, journalists and members of the opposition as an "act of dictatorial violence". "Europe is a community of values. We must take this seriously and not simply set out our economic interests", he said.
In Kern's view, Turkey's economic integration into the EU would be complicated. "Europe could never digest Turkey's economic integration", he said.
At the end of the high-level political dialogue between the EU and Turkey on 25 July, High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini had stated that Turkey "was and would remain" an EU candidate country (see EUROPE 11836). (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)