69th TURKEY-EU JOINT PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE MEETING HELD IN STRASBOURG

69th Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee Meeting was held in Strasbourg. 

Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis participated in the opening session of the meeting in which “Turkey-EU relations: Current Situation in the Negotiation Process” was discussed. Ambassador Kim Jorgensen, Undersecretary for European Affairs in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Denmark; Stefan Fule, European Commissioner for Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy participated in the session.

Upon a question asked regarding visa issues, Bagis said: “We want the necessary steps to be taken for the Turkish citizens to render them travel to Europe without visa.”

Stating that EU should treat Turkey the way it treats to the other candidate countries regarding the visa issue, Bagis said: “We don’t want visa facilitation, we want visa exemption. If they are sincere about visa facilitation, if they want to reduce the bureaucracy of their embassies and consulates, they have the right to do this. But, if they want from us to approve and sign the Readmission Agreement in return for the visa facilitation, all I can say is ‘this is out of logic’”.

In the second session of the meeting, “The Role of Women in the Society” was discussed with the participation of Fatma Sahin, Minister of Family and Social Policies and Emine Bozkurt, Member of the European Parliament.

Surce: AA