CoR working group meets in Türkiye

The meeting was hosted by Hacı Mustafa Palancioğlu (AK Party), mayor of Melikgazi/Kayseri, a municipality in a region heavily affected by the devastating earthquake that struck south-eastern Turkiye in March 2023, causing widespread damage, loss of life, and displacement.

Discussions on the UN Sustainable Development Goals focused on the need to increase action at the local level, reflecting UN warnings this year that progress towards many of the 17 targets for 2030 is weak and insufficient.

Participants emphasised the importance of continued dialogue between European and Turkish local and regional representatives, despite challenges in EU-Türkiye relations and a standstill in negotiations on Türkiye's accession to the EU. On 29 November, the European Commission and the EU's High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy issued a communication suggesting ways of reviving relations.

Antje Grotheer (DE/PES), president of Bremen City Parliament and chair of the Working Group Türkiye said: "EU clearly has a strategic interest to develop a mutually beneficial relationship with Türkiye. We, local and regional politicians, through our city diplomacy, cultural, economic and political ties should actively sustain the current trend to turn confrontation into cooperation. There are many opportunities and challenges to face together, such as trade, migration, education, climate change, energy transition, to name just a few. The dialogue on local democracy, rule of law and fundamental rights will remain an integral part of the EU-Türkiye relationship, and any positive agenda should be linked to a genuine improvement of democracy."

Speakers at the meeting included Nacho Sánchez Amor, the European Parliament's rapporteur on Türkiye. In September 2023, the European Parliament called on the EU and Türkiye "to break the current stalemate and move towards a closer partnership" and for a "realistic framework for EU-Türkiye relations".

The EU's 29 November communication proposed, among other things: a resumption of negotiations on the modernisation of the Customs Union, a 1995 trade agreement that allows goods to move freely between Türkiye and EU without tariffs or quotas; visa facilitation; and the resumption of a series of high-level meetings suspended in 2019.

At the level of local government, the CoR reiterated its concerns about the continued pressure applied to mayors from opposition parties by Türkiye's ruling coalition government and called for the next local elections, due to be held in March 2024, to be free and transparent.