{"id":111423,"date":"2026-06-18T16:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/111423\/"},"modified":"2026-06-18T16:21:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-18T16:21:12","slug":"ep-rapporteur-says-turkeys-membership-talks-cannot-resume-without-democratic-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/111423\/","title":{"rendered":"EP rapporteur says Turkey\u2019s membership talks cannot resume without democratic progress"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s European Union membership talks cannot resume without concrete democratic progress, the European Parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Turkey said<\/a> at a Wednesday press conference.<\/p>\n

Nacho S\u00e1nchez Amor, the Spanish lawmaker who leads the European Parliament\u2019s reporting on Turkey, said the EU faces a difficult balance: Turkey remains an important neighbor and partner, but its democratic backsliding makes accession talks impossible under current conditions.<\/p>\n

He made the remarks after European lawmakers adopted their 2025 report on Turkey, whose formal EU membership negotiations began in 2005 but have been effectively frozen for years over concerns about the rule of law, judicial independence, fundamental rights and press freedom.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s very frustrating to be the rapporteur on Turkey, because we have had no good news for many, many years,\u201d S\u00e1nchez Amor told reporters.<\/p>\n

He said the report had to repeat concerns about democratic backsliding and \u201cconsequently the impossibility to resume the accession process.\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Amor said he had received input from prominent Turkish opposition figures asking the EU to think about reviving the membership process, including jailed Istanbul Mayor Ekrem \u0130mamo\u011flu, jailed former pro-Kurdish party leader Selahattin Demirta\u015f and main opposition leader \u00d6zg\u00fcr \u00d6zel.<\/p>\n

But he said there were \u201cno objective conditions\u201d to restart the talks.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s accession process is one of the longest-running and most troubled in the EU\u2019s enlargement policy. The negotiations have stalled as European institutions have accused Ankara of moving away from EU democratic standards.<\/p>\n

Amor criticized what he described as weak statements and silence from the European Commission and the EU\u2019s foreign policy service over Turkey\u2019s domestic situation. He said the EU had spoken more forcefully in support of civil society in Serbia and Georgia than in Turkey, calling that a double standard.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are losing the pro-European civil society in Turkey,\u201d he said. \u201cThey feel abandoned, they feel orphaned.\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Amor said pro-European groups in Turkey were beginning to suspect that the EU was no longer a project based on principles and values, but one driven mainly by interests.<\/p>\n

He also raised alarm over pressure on Turkey\u2019s main opposition Republican People\u2019s Party (CHP). The party dealt President Recep Tayyip Erdo\u011fan\u2019s ruling party its worst election defeat in more than two decades in the 2024 local elections, retaining Istanbul and Ankara and winning control of other major municipalities.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Amor said the CHP was being \u201ccarefully dismantled\u201d after those election victories and said the pressure represented \u201ca great loss for plurality in Turkey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u0130mamo\u011flu, Istanbul\u2019s mayor, has become one of Erdo\u011fan\u2019s most prominent political rivals and a potential opposition challenger in a future presidential race. He was jailed pending trial in March 2025 on corruption charges that he denies, a move that triggered Turkey\u2019s largest street protests in more than a decade.<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Amor accused Turkish authorities of using the judiciary to weaken the opposition, pointing to cases against \u0130mamo\u011flu and other municipal officials. He said the case against \u0130mamo\u011flu and more than 100 others was \u201cfabricated\u201d and part of a wider effort to \u201cdismantle the opposition.\u201d<\/p>\n

S\u00e1nchez Amor also criticized the appointment of Ak\u0131n G\u00fcrlek as justice minister. G\u00fcrlek, a former Istanbul chief prosecutor, has been criticized by opposition figures over his role in politically sensitive cases against government critics.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is still a club of democracies,\u201d S\u00e1nchez Amor said. \u201cWe want the European Union to stay as a club of democracies.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Turkey\u2019s European Union membership talks cannot resume without concrete democratic progress, the European Parliament\u2019s rapporteur on Turkey said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[83],"tags":[422,8581,423,425,426,312,1181,427,428,8014,429,8632,431,16165,131,132,155],"class_list":["post-111423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-stockholm","tag-ak-party","tag-akin-gurlek","tag-akp","tag-democracy","tag-erdogan","tag-human-rights","tag-istanbul-mayor-ekrem-imamoglu","tag-justice","tag-law","tag-nacho-sanchez-amor","tag-oppression","tag-ozgur-ozel","tag-rule-of-law","tag-selahattin-demirtas","tag-stockholm","tag-sweden","tag-turkey"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116772031079278692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111423","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111423"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111423\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}