Progress Report on Turkey

Though I voted for this resolution, I wish to express the following reservations: 1)On a general level, I doubt the value of an omnibus resolution which reviews rather indiscriminately on all files pertaining to the Turkey-EU relationship, with little focus on what the priorities should be; 2)The resolution says much about what Turkey should have done better in its relationship with the EU and little or not at all about what the EU has done badly or not at all in satisfying its commitments towards Turkey; 3)In particular, the resolution could have analysed the ambiguities, fudges and delays in the EU’s approach when dealing with the Turkish request for membership of the EU which in part provoked Turkey’s later quest for a different geo-strategic posture, not least in order to have a fall-back option should its European quest be blocked; 4)The resolution fails to give sufficient acknowledgement to Turkey’s achievements as a state with Muslim core values, by way of modernisation, economic growth, social development, stability of institutions and progress towards an equitable arrangement with its Kurdish community.