Brussels // The EU accused Turkey of backsliding on the rule of law, rights and the media in a report on Tuesday, calling on the new government to take urgent action.
The scathing report on Ankara’s EU candidacy had been expected to be released in October but was held back until after the elections, in which Mr Erdogan’s AKP party stormed back to a majority.
While it was Brussels’ strongest criticism yet of the surge in violence in Turkey, calling for a renewed peace effort with the Kurds and expressing its concern about the dramatic curtailing of press freedoms, the European Commission also praised Ankara for taking in millions of Syrians.
In its annual report of the country’s progress towards EU membership, it also had blunt advice for Mr Erdogan and its newly re-elected AK Party.
“The Commission hopes to see an end to the escalating violence in Turkey and the return to negotiations on a lasting solution on the Kurdish issue,” Johannes Hahn, the commissioner in charge of EU enlargement, told the European Parliament.
It was severely critical of the domestic situation in Muslim majority Turkey, saying that under Mr Erdogan there had been “serious backsliding” on freedom of expression and that the judiciary had been undermined.
“The report emphasises an overall negative trend in the respect for the rule of law and fundamental rights,” said a summary of the report’s key findings by the European Commission, the EU’s powerful executive arm.
Turkey’s commitment to joining the 28-nation bloc was “offset” by domestic actions that “ran against European standards”, it added.
“The new government formed after the repeat election on 1 November will need to address these urgent priorities,” the report said.
It highlighted criminal cases against journalists and writers, intimidation of media outlets and changes to internet law.
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Turkey had meanwhile seen a “severe deterioration of its security situation” including a huge suicide bombing on a peace rally just before the election, and the collapse of a ceasefire with Kurdish militants.
The report comes just over a month after the EU announced a a refugee cooperation deal with Turkey, including a possible €3 billion (Dh11.8bn) in aid.
The deal included pushing forward Turkey’s long-stalled accession process and speeding up visa liberalisation for Turks travelling to the EU.
Mr Erdogan, who became prime minister in 2003 and then Turkey’s first directly-elected president in 2014, was initially hailed in the West for transforming Turkey into a model of Muslim democracy and turning around its basket-case economy.
But a brutal police crackdown on nationwide protests in 2013, a massive purge of the judiciary following the corruption probe and constant concerns about human rights have cooled relations with both Washington and Brussels. Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 and accession talks began in 2005, but Ankara has since completed just one of the 33 “chapters” needed to join the bloc.
* Agence France-Presse and Reuters
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