The decision made by European Parliament that negotiations between EU and Turkey will be frozen has been wrong. EP has chosen the wrong way and recommended that negotiations must be frozen. But it has to behave just the opposite way and keep it tight for maintaining a more intense negotiation process continuously, especially on two chapters which is about democratization and on which Turkey is having the most difficult exams right now.

Chapter 23( Judgement and fundamental human rights)

Chapter 24 (Justice, freedom, security)

The decision made by EP, will not help to solve the problems on democracy and human rights in Turkey, and on the other hand it will increase the worries about the security and unity of EU, of which sustainability is being questioned and has become a heap of trouble.

Certainly, AKP and its government authorities have a big role in EP’s process of this decision. Because, for years the essential attention to the negotiations hasn’t been paid,  the self-criticism mechanism hasn’t been worked out, the mistakes haven’t been faced and in fact the AKP governors casted away any report which hasn’t suited their interests or with the hit expression of these days they say “I didn’t recognize it” and take the easy way out, didn’t do their homeworks and in the end, we have come to a point that Turkey is going away from EU norms, the welfare state element, human rights, superiority of law, separation of powers, fundamental rights and freedoms.

As a result, AKP government’s insincerity about EU is underlying the crisis which is being experienced today, but EU is not that innocent. It has applied double standard and behaved in hypocrisy about Turkey’s full membership compared with other candidate states’ negotiation standards.

In this mutual vicious circle, EU and EP despite all our warnings as CHP, especially in the constitution  referendum in 2010 have supported AKP and have played a great role in the process enlarging problems as nowadays in the field of superiority of law, independent and unbiased judgement, fundamental rights and freedoms, and they underlay the break point of these days.

As a result, not only Turkey, but also EU must foresee the political and economic results of this decision, and for the sustainability of democracy, stability and security in the region, and for not to give credit to the extreme right, anti-secular, fascist, racist, nationalist, radical, separatist, authoritarian movements, I hope they will be in a more responsible and more constructive attitude up to the European Council meeting.

EU without Turkey, will be incomplete at least as Turkey without EU, and this will be an important evidence of going far away from the construction ideals.

Umut Oran
Vice-President of Socialist International
Former Vice-President of the Commission for EU Harmonization
 

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