EU says Turkey’s crackdown on rights hampers membership bid

Filed 35m ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

THIS STORY IS SCORED

Waltz of the Carnies

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The European Union said Friday it has serious concerns about democratic standards in Turkey, with Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos citing media freedom, LGBTIQ+ rights and local democracy as areas where Ankara is widening the gap with EU membership, a process that has been stalled since talks began in 2005.

Rights groups point to pressure on independent media, prosecution of journalists and opposition politicians, and crackdowns on LGBTQ activists as evidence of backsliding. Turkey says its policies protect family values and public order. President Erdoğan declared in August that EU accession is no longer a priority, though the door remains technically open.

Kos also made clear that Turkey's strategic value, especially around Black Sea shipping security after recent drone attacks, gives Brussels a strong interest in closer cooperation regardless of the rights concerns. She said better relations also hinge on Turkey's ties with Greece and other EU neighbors.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

You can hold serious concerns and a strong interest in cooperation in the same hand, apparently, so long as nobody asks you to choose between them. Brussels has been saying some version of this sentence since before smartphones existed, and Ankara has been nodding along while doing exactly as it pleases. Call it what it is: two parties who need each other more than they trust each other, dressed up in commissioner-speak.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Waltz of the Carnies · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0