The European Union and Turkey held constructive talks on the conditions for granting visa-free travel for Turks, and EU experts will visit Ankara next week to work on removing the last obstacles, the European Commission’s vice-president said on May 27.
Frans
Timmermans said on Twitter after talks with Turkish Foreign Minister
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu and EU Affairs Minister Ömer Çelik that they shared a
“joint determination to overcome last remaining obstacles to visa
liberalization.”Brussels has promised Turks visa-free travel into Europe
in return for stopping the flow of illegal migrants to the bloc, after
more than a million entered the EU from Turkey last year. While Europe is desperate for the deal to work, it also insists Ankara meet 72 criteria, including narrowing the scope of its broad anti-terrorism laws to meet European standards.
Rights
groups and some European officials say Turkey uses the laws to stifle
dissent, prosecuting academics and journalists for expressing peaceful
opinions, while President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says Turkey needs its legislation to fight the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
The
disagreement has threatened the future of the migrant deal and put
pressure on Ankara’s relationship with the bloc. Erdoğan, who
spearheaded Turkey’s drive for EU candidacy, has threatened it could go
its own way if Europe failed to agree.
Turkish foreign ministry officials confirmed that officials from Ankara would meet with their European counterparts next week to determine a roadmap on visa liberalization.
Wrangling
over the anti-terrorism law has cast doubt on whether the end-June
target date for the visa deal can still be met. Officials and diplomats
told Reuters the deadline looked likely to be missed, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel
said after talks with Erdoğan last week that it may take longer but she
was confident both sides would stick to the migrant pact.
Keeping
the migration accord on track is a key priority for several EU member
states, especially the bloc’s biggest power, Germany, which took in most
of the 1.3 million refugees and migrants who reached Europe last year.