On Wednesday 8 November, the Secretary General of the Council of Europe, Thorbjørn Jagland, announced that Turkey had officially notified its intention no longer to be one of the major payer states of the international organisation.
Taking questions at a press conference held after his meeting with Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, president of the Republican People's Party (CHP), the main parliamentary opposition in Turkey, Jagland said that “a dialogue on this subject had been started” with Ankara. For his part, Kılıçdaroğlu said that he had just found out about it and hoped that Turkey would eventually think again about its decision.
The Secretary General declined to be drawn on the reasons behind the decision, which had been notified to him a few days earlier by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, but it is clear that relations have deteriorated in recent months between Turkey and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). In April of this year, PACE voted to reactivate a monitoring procedure against Turkey until such time as its grave concerns regarding the respect of democracy and the rule of law have been dealt with satisfactorily (see EUROPE 11774). In October, it awarded its Vaclav Havel human rights prize to Murat Arslan, a Turkish magistrate accused of links with the Gülen community and imprisoned for nearly a year. A former ally of President Erdogan, he has become a thorn in his side.
If it comes to fruition, Turkey's withdrawal from the major payers' club will be an extremely tough blow to the Council of Europe (CoE). The country's contribution could fall from more than €33 million to around €13 million and this funding gap of around €20 million would intensify the financial retaliatory measures already played by Russia, another major payer alongside France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Having been annoyed by sanctions adopted by PACE in response to the annexation of the Crimea, Russia decided in June of this year to suspend its contribution to the 2017 budget of the CoE, thereby leaving it €22 million poorer (see EUROPE 11821).
As regards Turkey, “nothing is certain at the moment”, said a source in Jagland's cabinet, “the matter remains to be discussed” - both on the principle and concerning any details.
In any event, Çavuşoğlu''s letter has been submitted today to the permanent representations to the Council of Europe of the 46 other member countries of the pan-European organisation. (Original version in French by Véronique Leblanc)