The European Parliament will vote on Wednesday 19 May on the report by Nacho Sánchez Amor (S&D, Spain) on the European Commission’s 2019 and 2020 reports on Turkey (https://bit.ly/3eWPsPM ).
Before the vote, the rapporteur spoke to EUROPE about the situation in Turkey, the country’s relations with the EU and the position of the European institutions vis-à-vis Ankara. (Interview by Camille-Cerise Gessant)
Agence Europe - How would you describe the situation in Turkey and EU/Turkey relations?
Nacho Sánchez Amor - This is the main issue of the report we are debating in plenary session, because there are different approaches from the European Union towards Turkey.
The Parliament is still committed to the democratisation agenda; we are very concerned about what is happening in Turkey, about its position towards the EU, about what is happening with the Istanbul Convention, with any minor critic of Turkish society being harassed or prosecuted.
But the EU Council is more inclined to approach Turkey from a geopolitical point of view. This means that the democratisation agenda is being pushed aside, and we are not happy with this situation.
For the future, one of the main messages of my report is not for Turkey, but for the EU institutions: we must unify our policy towards Turkey. We cannot maintain this completely divergent approach that allows Turkey to manoeuvre among us, which is bad for relations.
That is why I have asked the EU Council to integrate the democratisation agenda and the issue of Turkey’s status as a candidate country, i.e. democratic conditionality, into all aspects of our relations.
In the same way, I must ask my colleagues in Parliament not to forget the other aspect of our relations, namely the geopolitical aspect, Turkey’s foreign policy and the importance of Turkey as a neighbour with which we want to have better relations.
This report not only depicts the worrying situation of democracy in Turkey, it is also a call to the European Union to be united in its relationship with Turkey.
What do we need to do to be more united?
The EU Council must understand that the issue of values is not only part of the European Parliament’s agenda.
We are talking about the European values that each institution must defend. There is no such implicit sharing of duties in which the EU Council considers itself completely free to act without such consideration and the European Parliament is always obliged to defend values.
I am pleased to note that, in her press conference during her last visit to Ankara, Mrs von der Leyen was very clear: she mentioned some issues. Until then, the Commission was in an ambiguous situation. This means that at least the Parliament and the Commission have understood very well that the fundamental values of the EU have to be indifferent to any relationship with a candidate country.
In your report, you call for a formal suspension of the accession negotiations. Why?
This is the formula we have been using in the European Parliament for the last four or five reports, because we have seen the lack of political will to push forward democratic reforms in Turkey.
And, given the situation, we asked for the suspension. What happened has been a de facto frozen situation.
What I would like to try to do is to send a message to both parties again. We need to think about what kind of relationship we want for the future.
Is Turkey really committed to the European project? Because there is sometimes a lot of distance between statements and facts. Is the EU sincere in its offer of candidate country status, i.e. membership?
We need to stop for a while and rethink the whole complex relationship with Turkey. This is a time out to think and to act, not to retaliate or to punish, say, bad behaviour.
In your report, “the European Parliament expresses its willingness to strengthen and deepen mutual knowledge and understanding between Turkish and EU Member States’ societies”. Are you in favour of visa liberalisation?
Yes. Sometimes Turkish officials say that the EU has not kept its promises, that it has not fulfilled its commitments on the migration agreement.
The agreement we reached was very clear. We are ready to discuss visa liberalisation as long as Turkey fulfils the criteria it has to meet. This means changing the anti-terrorism and data protection laws. They have not started talking about these reforms.
The commitments are mutual: Turkey must complete its reforms and liberalisation will be effective.
You also say in your report: “the crucial area of fundamental rights and freedoms cannot be disconnected and isolated from overall relations and that remains the main obstacle to progress on any positive agenda”. Do you oppose the positive agenda proposed by the EU Council (see EUROPE 12572/1, 12686/3)?
No, absolutely not. What the European Parliament is going to say to the EU Council is: “if you propose any kind of positive agenda, it must be linked to democratic conditionality, because Turkey is a candidate country”.
Sometimes you get this kind of message from Turkey: “Why don’t we talk about the customs union? It’s about economics, business, trade, it’s a win-win situation”. There is no win-win situation if there are no democratic reforms in Turkey, this is the position of the Parliament.
We are very clear in the report. The groups are fully committed to this agenda.
It is worth reminding the EU Council that at the end of the day the issue of the customs union will be on the table of the Parliament. And the European Parliament has been quite clear from the beginning: we are not approving of any kind of customs union if it means no improvement of the democratic situation in the country.
In your report (in the English version), you used the words concerned or concerns 66 times, worried 7 times, and you condemn something in Turkey 29 times. Is the situation really that bad? Are there no positive points?
In general, we have not received good news in the last two years. If you talk about what’s happening in Turkey, it’s always the increasing repression, the increasing harassment, the shrinking of the space of civil society, we haven’t received good news. (...)
We must be clear with Turkey: we do not want any more reform projects or action plans. We want facts. This means: how do prosecutors deal with this kind of thing? Will a student be harassed or prosecuted if they ‘tweet’ a criticism or not? I think prosecutors are one of the keys to the problem, because they have been the long arm of the State in what is proving to be a consistent policy of crushing any form of criticism.
We want facts, not love letters.