19TH REFORM MONITORING GROUP CONVENED

Under the presidency of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, 19th Reform Monitoring Group Meeting hosted by Minister for EU Affairs and the Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis was held on 28.12.2010. The meeting was held in the new premises of Prime Ministry with the participation of Ahmet Davutoglu, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Sadullah Ergin, Minister of Justice and Besir Atalay, Minister of Interior.

Delivering a brief speech at the opening of the meeting, Bagis noted that the RMG meetings were used to be held twice a year at the beginning, but, they started to be held in every two months since the beginning of 2009 and out of Ankara, if necessary.

Bagis reminded that, within that framework, they had held meetings in Hatay and Trabzon and said that today's meeting was actually planned to be held in Istanbul, but, the venue for the meeting had to be changed as Ankara due to the state ceremony that would be arranged for Ihsan Dogramaci who contributed a lot to the education system in Turkey and to the country's development.

In his speech he delivered after the 19th Reform Monitoring Group Meeting, Recep Tayyip Erdogan pointed out that the works related to the Chapter 24 concerning "Justice, Freedom, Security" which carried importance politically were continuously being carried out, and stated that in the meeting they also discussed the works carried out in order to change the visa policy currently implemented by the EU towards Turkish citizens in a way to provide visa exemption.

Erdogan stated that he observed with pleasure that the Reform Monitoring Group had a very important function particularly in terms of monitoring the reforms implemented in the EU process and also in terms of the institutionalization of the European Union accession process and said that his visit to Spain, which holds the EU Presidency, on 21-23 February constituted the latest development before this meeting concerning the European Union accession process. Indicating that apart from bilateral relations, they also returned from this visit "with hands full" in terms of the EU membership negotiations, Prime Minister Erdogan stressed that even though the Spanish government declared that it wouldn't include bilateral summits in its agenda during its EU presidency, it excluded Turkey-Spain summit from this practice and this was an obvious indicator of the support given by this country to Turkey and Turkey's membership to the EU.

Noting that Turkey's EU target was a manifestation of will for change and desire for improvement of the Turkish nation, Prime Minister Erdogan stated that the goal of going beyond the level of the contemporary civilizations which was set by Ataturk and the expectations of the nation were driving Turkey to have this vision.

Stating that a democracy which lags behind the modern standards and a conception of law which is far away from universal values couldn't be Turkey's destiny, Erdogan said that Turkey had to introduce reforms which befit its vision and greatness.

Prime Minister Erdogan said, "We are working for bringing a democracy and democratic functioning at the EU standards to Turkey" and continued as follows:

"Similarly, our objectives such as constitutional amendment, judicial reform, ‘democratic initiative' are arrangements which are required for harmonization with the EU, to which we are striving to be a member. I even go further to say that we are making an effort to take a step which could almost be a convergent of all the judicial systems in the world. As long as Turkey doesn't introduce reforms in these areas and it delays these reforms, it will defer both its EU membership and chance of reaching more prosperous living standards for its own people. It is absolutely certain that a government which has this much will towards the EU membership target will pay regard for contemporary, universal, advanced and democratic standards in any area such as Constitution, judicial reform, ‘National Unity and Brotherhood Process'. Each step we take is consistent with this target.

Prime Minister Erdogan thanked mainly the ministers and bureaucrats and all the ministries, specialized committees of the TGNA, relevant institutions, non-governmental organisations and everyone who contributed to the process for their efforts.

Source: AA