Members of the EP Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) vote on the 2019-2020 Commission Reports on Turkey in the European Parliament in Brussels. Statement by Nacho SÁNCHEZ AMOR (S&D, ES).

Committee on Foreign Affairs

Brussels

statement

meeting

EU - Türkiye (T)

vote

SÁNCHEZ AMOR, Nacho (S&D, ES)

2019-2020 Commission Reports on Turkey: statement by Nacho SÁNCHEZ AMOR (S&D, ES)

SOUNDBITE (English), Nacho S&#193;NCHEZ AMOR (S&amp;D, ES), MEP 9th parliamentary term, Turkey is a candidate country and sometimes we forget that Turkey is a candidate country. It is true that the accession process is frozen, but formally Turkey is an accession country and that means you have to approach the European Union in everything : in values, in perspectives, in foreign policy, in geopolitical approaches. But what happened in the last period is that Turkey decided to diverge on every aspect of the relations. And for that reason, the Parliament has to signal clear, not only to Turkey, but also to the Council. The Democratic agenda always has to be in any relation with Turkey.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nacho S&#193;NCHEZ AMOR (S&amp;D, ES), MEP 9th parliamentary term, The sofagate shadowed the attitude of the Commission, because the Commission finally has been clear on our exigencies, on our demands on human rights and rule of law in Turkey. But because of the sofagate, at the end, the rest of the agenda of the visit has been in some way shadowed. And this is a pity because the Parliament is completely committed with that idea. Any institution of the European Union, not only the Parliament, has to take care of our values in our external relations.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nacho S&#193;NCHEZ AMOR (S&amp;D, ES), MEP 9th parliamentary term, I have to say, we work a lot. We had around 700 amendments. We finally reached 31 compromises and that has been reflected in the vote because any of the compromises has been supported by colleagues in AFET. Now we are coming to the plenary, and as you know, when you talk about Turkey, anybody has an opinion. It is not easy that every single member of the Parliament has an opinion on glyphosate. But I assure you on Turkey, every member has an opinion and this is an open place to criticise, to change things. I am completely open to study any amendment and what I would like to have at the end of the process is a clear signal to Turkey.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nacho S&#193;NCHEZ AMOR (S&amp;D, ES), MEP 9th parliamentary term, The compromises covered the whole content of the report. And the core contents are human rights and rule of law. There are other things about how to tackle the relation with Turkey in the future and we are open to offer this positive agenda, that the Council offered last month, if Turkey engaged finally with facts. This is the main message we have toconvey.

SOUNDBITE (English), Nacho S&#193;NCHEZ AMOR (S&amp;D, ES), MEP 9th parliamentary term, Another important message is addressed to the other institutions : we have to unify our approaches to Turkey. Sometimes the Council deals with Turkey as if Turkey was not a candidate country and the Parliament sometimes only considers Turkey as a candidate country. And Turkey is a neighbour, is an ally, is a partner, is an accession country. We have to take care of any other of these facets, but we have to unify our policies.

Cutaways of MEP Nacho S&Aacute;NCHEZ AMOR (3 shots)