C 493/14
EN
Official Journal of the European Union
27.12.2022
Tuesday 7 June 2022
36.
Commends the efforts made by Turkey to continue hosting the largest refugee population in the world; welcomes, in this regard, the continued provision of EU funding for refugees and host communities in Turkey, and expresses its commitment to sustaining this support in the future; calls on the Commission to ensure the utmost transparency and accuracy in the allocation of funds under the successor to the Facility for Refugees in Turkey, ensuring that the funds are primarily given directly to the refugees and host communities and managed by organisations that guarantee accountability and transparency; supports an objective assessment of the cooperation between the EU and Turkey on refugees and migration matters and underlines the importance of both sides complying with their respective commitments under the EU-Turkey Joint Statement of 2016 and the EU-Turkey Readmission Agreement vis-à-vis all Member States, including the resumption of the readmission of returnees from the Greek islands, which was interrupted in March 2020, or the activation of the Voluntary Humanitarian Admissions Scheme; insists that the respect for fundamental freedoms needs to be at the centre of the implementation process of the EU-Turkey Statement; greatly commends the essential contribution of civil society and local authorities in Turkey to the integration of refugees; supports better and greater access to protection services for specific vulnerable groups; calls on the Turkish Government to enhance access to the labour market for Syrian refugees and to put measures in place to avoid the risk of statelessness for a generation of Syrian children born in Turkey; recognises the migratory pressure Turkey is facing, but firmly objects to any instrumentalisation of migrants by the Turkish Government; is concerned by continued reports of summary push-backs of Afghans and others apprehended attempting to cross the border, and arbitrary deportations to Syria; deplores the human smuggling and human rights violations to which refugees have been subjected in Turkey; insists that returns of refugees should only happen on a voluntary basis and in safety and urges Turkey to provide greater access to deportation centres for international and national organisations in order to monitor and provide assistance to those in the process of being returned; notes with concern signs of increasing racist and xenophobic attacks against foreigners, as well as the use of an anti-refugee narrative and mounting anti-immigration sentiment in Turkish politics and society; notes that a continuing increase in asylum applications was registered in Cyprus in 2021 and recalls Turkey’s obligation to take any necessary measures to prevent the creation of new sea or land routes for illegal migration from Turkey to the EU;
37.
Reiterates its support for the current Customs Union and calls on Turkey to respect its obligations, including eliminating non-tariff barriers to free movement; believes that strengthening trade relations could bring concrete benefits to citizens in Turkey and the EU, and therefore supports the Commission’s proposal to start negotiations on upgrading a mutually beneficial Customs Union, accompanied by an effective and efficient dispute settlement mechanism; warns, however, that such a modernisation of the Customs Union would need to be based on strong conditionality related to human rights and fundamental freedoms, respect for international law and good neighbourly relations, and that it can only be envisaged upon Turkey’s full implementation of the Additional Protocol to extend the Ankara Agreement towards all Member States without reserve and in a non-discriminatory fashion; stresses that both parties must be fully aware of this democratic conditionality from the outset of any negotiations, as Parliament will not give its consent to the final agreement without results in this field;
38.
Notes that visa liberalisation would constitute an important step towards facilitating people-to-people contacts and is of great importance for Turkish citizens, particularly for students, academics, business representatives and people with family ties in EU Member States; reiterates its support for the visa liberalisation process once the established conditions have been met and encourages the Turkish Government to work towards harmonising its visa policy with that of the EU and to fully comply with the 72 criteria identified in the visa liberalisation roadmap in a non-discriminatory manner towards all Member States; stresses that there has been very little real progress on the six outstanding benchmarks still to be fulfilled by Turkey; notes that the new action plan on human rights envisages expediting fulfilment of the remaining benchmarks; stresses that the revision of Turkey’s anti-terrorism legislation and data protection law are key conditions for ensuring fundamental rights and freedoms;
39.
Regrets the recent reshuffle in the Commission’s Directorate-General for Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations (DG NEAR) by Commissioner Varhélyi, which has seen the unit in charge of Turkey integrated with the units responsible for the ‘Neighbourhood South’; regards this move, allegedly undertaken for the purposes of efficiency and streamlining the internal organisation, as a serious political mistake which has also been highly criticised not only by the Turkish Government but all pro-European Turkish actors;