More bad news for Turkey's EU accession bid
The European Union's most recent report on the state of Turkey's bid to join the bloc appears to confirm the view of many analysts that the current process is riddled with hypocrisy and is not beneficial to either party.
Lost amid Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's stunning announcement today that presidential and parliamentary elections would be held concurrently on June 24, nearly 17 months ahead of schedule, was the European Union’s yearly report on Turkey’s progress toward full membership in the bloc. The harshest report since talks began in 2005 received scant attention from the press, but it triggered howls of protest from Turkish officials.
The report released yesterday decries the weakening of Turkey's democracy, ongoing mass arrests in the wake of the failed 2016 coup and mounting pressure on civil society along with the lack of a level playing field in the run-up to the April 2017 referendum on switching from a parliamentary system to an executive presidency. In addition, it notes “serious backsliding” in judicial reform and freedom of expression and cites human rights abuses in the majority-Kurdish southeast.
Regarding the state of emergency Ankara imposed after the attempted putsch, the EU wrote that it needs to lift it without delay. The Turkish government extended emergency rule by a further three months the day of the report's release. As for the fight against corruption, the report says, “No progress was achieved.” Under the current circumstances, it is “unthinkable” in the EU's eyes to open new accession chapters. Johannes Hahn, EU commissioner for enlargement negotiations, declared that Turkey was taking “huge strides away” from the bloc.
Omer Celik, Turkey’s EU affairs minister, dismissed the report as unfair, saying, “It is a report which has no vision and content, which is far from understanding the intensity, dimensions and perspective of [Turkey-EU] relations.” He said he would pen a letter of protest to the European Commission on the grounds that the terms of the migration deal Ankara struck with the Europeans were being violated. Under the deal, which Erdogan periodically threatens to trash, Turkish authorities pledged to stem the flow of millions of refugees to Europe in exchange for billions of euros in funding for care of the refugees in Turkey.
