Mr President, on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party and , I want to thank the Council and the Commission for agreeing to update us on this delicate and painful issue of the Turkish prisons. The situation is highly critical and, as the President of the Council pointed out, it has already cost 22 lives and may cost many more. At the same time our Parliament does not want to intervene too hastily. Several initiatives, from different sides, have been taken with a view to resolving the situation: by the President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Presidency of the Council and the European Commission, as Mr Verheugen pointed out, and, on a personal basis, by the chairman of our parliamentary delegation that visited Ankara and met all the actors involved in this singular conflict. Our objective is to support these initiatives; we do not want to interfere to no purpose but to demonstrate the European Parliament's enduring interest and vigilance in relation to human rights and everything that concerns our Turkish partner. Turkey has been going through difficult times since the beginning of this year. The very serious financial crisis put paid to some extent to the economic recovery plan that was already under way. The European Union is supporting and underpinning the IMF action to promote the implementation of the vigorous measures that Minister Kemal Dervi resolutely adopted. At the end of the summer we will have an opportunity to look at the results of this policy and to evaluate the national programme to adapt the Community acquis, which the Ankara government recently adopted. Over the same period of time, however, the Turkish prisons have been the scene of riots that were suppressed by particularly bloody means, followed by hunger strikes that turned into death fasts. We are aware that this creates an extremely difficult situation for the Turkish authorities. The leaders of the movement belong to fanatical extremist organisations that do not hesitate to play with the lives of their militants, or even their families, for political propaganda purposes. Oddly enough, this movement sprang up when the prisoners concerned were about to be moved from the overcrowded prisons into which they were crammed under shameful conditions into modern prisons that complied with the Council of Europe's recommendations. During the 1970s and 1980s, similar events occurred in our own democracies, although on a lesser scale. While we do not underestimate the difficulties we do, therefore, emphasise the importance of rapidly finding a solution to the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, to bring an end to the daily deaths, without giving in to what is plainly an unacceptable form of political blackmail. A delegation from our Parliament will be visiting the Turkish prisons in early June to try to evaluate the situation on the ground objectively and make recommendations on a longer-term prison policy. It is very much to be hoped that this humanitarian problem can be settled in the meantime. As Mr Verheugen said, this could be helped by speeding up the modernisation of the Turkish penal code and penitentiary code as also by adopting measures to calm down the situation in the new prisons. At the same time, I am convinced that these would be regarded as a significant expression of Turkey’s resolve to move closer to the European model.

Political group: PPE-DE