The European Commission released its regular report on Turkey in Brussels on Wednesday.
The political dimension of the negotiation process has been removed from this document and is now included in a second report, entitled, “Enlargement strategy and the and Main Challenges 2006-2007.”
In their report, the Commission alleges that “Turkey continues to sufficiently fulfil the Copenhagen political criteria,” and that “in 2006, Turkey has continued to make progress in reforms,” pointing out, however, that “the pace has slowed down.” Taking note of Turkey’s infringement of the Ankara protocol, the Commission decided that “it will make relevant recommendations prior to the December European Council regarding whether Turkey has failed to fulfil its obligations.”
The document also addressed, for the first time, the EU executive body’s linkage between the possible future enlargement and the implementation of constitutional reforms within the EU institutions.
Regarding the Armenian issues, the regular report failed to denounce the denial campaign waged by Turkey, both on its own territory and throughout the Union. Previous mentions of the Genocide in previous reports – characterized euphemistically as “tragic events” – were not reflected in this new document.
On freedom of speech, only Article 301 of the Turkish penal code was mentioned. The Commission failed to denounce the other provisions of Turkish law aimed at freedom of speech, especially Article 305, which penalizes the affirmation of the Armenian Genocide.
Finally, in the technical chapters related to the Acquis Communautaire, the illegal blockade of Armenia is described using the dismissive terminology, “closed border.”
The European Armenian Federation is troubled by the Commission’s failure to fairly and meaningfully address Armenian issues, particularly the issue of Turkey’s denial of the Armenian Genocide. “The Commission’s report, most notably it failure to challenge Turkey’s many restrictions of freedom of speech, represents a true setback in terms of the credibility of this European institution, particularly in light of its eagerness to criticize France for its law penalizing the denial of the Armenian genocide,” stated Hilda Tchoboian, the Chairperson of the European Armenian Federation.
The Federation announced that the European citizens it represents expect the Commission to fairly and honestly perform its task of accurately assessing Turkey’s progress, without bowing to political pressures.
Otherwise, European public opinion will turn against the Commission’s double standards,” added Tchoboian.
The Federation also denounces the arrogance of the Turkish leaders who attempt to force Europe to abandon its values. “The talks over Turkey’s candidacy have devolved from a negotiation into a race to see which side can walk away from European values,” she concluded .
What Are Cookies
As is common practice with almost all professional websites, our site uses cookies, which are tiny files that are downloaded to your device, to improve your experience.
This document describes what information they gather, how we use it and why we sometimes need to store these cookies. We will also share how you can prevent these cookies from being stored however this may downgrade or ‘break’ certain elements of the sites functionality.
How We Use Cookies
We use cookies for a variety of reasons detailed below. Unfortunately, in most cases there are no industry standard options for disabling cookies without completely disabling the functionality and features they add to the site. It is recommended that you leave on all cookies if you are not sure whether you need them or not, in case they are used to provide a service that you use.
The types of cookies used on this website can be classified into one of three categories:
- Strictly Necessary Cookies. These are essential in order to enable you to use certain features of the website, such as submitting forms on the website.
- Functionality Cookies.These are used to allow the website to remember choices you make (such as your language) and provide enhanced features to improve your web experience.
- Analytical / Navigation Cookies. These cookies enable the site to function correctly and are used to gather information about how visitors use the site. This information is used to compile reports and help us to improve the site. Cookies gather information in anonymous form, including the number of visitors to the site, where visitors came from and the pages they viewed.
Disabling Cookies
You can prevent the setting of cookies by adjusting the settings on your browser (see your browser’s “Help” option on how to do this). Be aware that disabling cookies may affect the functionality of this and many other websites that you visit. Therefore, it is recommended that you do not disable cookies.
Third Party Cookies
In some special cases we also use cookies provided by trusted third parties. Our site uses [Google Analytics] which is one of the most widespread and trusted analytics solutions on the web for helping us to understand how you use the site and ways that we can improve your experience. These cookies may track things such as how long you spend on the site and the pages that you visit so that we can continue to produce engaging content. For more information on Google Analytics cookies, see the official Google Analytics page.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is Google’s analytics tool that helps our website to understand how visitors engage with their properties. It may use a set of cookies to collect information and report website usage statistics without personally identifying individual visitors to Google. The main cookie used by Google Analytics is the ‘__ga’ cookie.
In addition to reporting website usage statistics, Google Analytics can also be used, together with some of the advertising cookies, to help show more relevant ads on Google properties (like Google Search) and across the web and to measure interactions with the ads Google shows.
Learn more about Analytics cookies and privacy information.
Use of IP Addresses. An IP address is a numeric code that identifies your device on the Internet. We might use your IP address and browser type to help analyze usage patterns and diagnose problems on this website and to improve the service we offer to you. But without additional information your IP address does not identify you as an individual.
Your Choice. When you accessed this website, our cookies were sent to your web browser and stored on your device. By using our website, you agree to the use of cookies and similar technologies.
More Information
Hopefully the above information has clarified things for you. As it was previously mentioned, if you are not sure whether you want to allow the cookies or not, it is usually safer to leave cookies enabled in case it interacts with one of the features you use on our site. However, if you are still looking for more information, then feel free to contact us via email at [email protected]