TURKEY PROGRAMME OF THE EUROPEAN BUSINESS AWARDS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

Attending the “Turkey Programme of the Innovation for Sustainability - European Business Awards for the Environment” hold in Istanbul, Minister for European Union Affairs and the Chief Negotiator, Egemen Bagis delivered a speech in the award ceremony and stated that Turkey was far ahead of some EU member countries in terms of the environmental issues.

Egemen Bagis declared that thanks to the increasing awareness of the consumers in Turkey, people had begun to prefer products manufactured with clean technologies, and not prefer the products and firms polluting the environment.  Bagis emphasized that rendering this awareness permanent was all-important. He added: “Today, giving awards to firms with this awareness is also of vital importance for the support of this mentality.”

Recalling that Turkey was a country carrying out accession negotiations, Bagis said:

"I can clearly state that we are far ahead of some EU member countries in terms of environmental issues. Turkey has proved its decisiveness in the environmental issues as it has in many other fields. Turkey carries out the works relating to environment, in harmony with the European Union. We are passing through an environmentalist and competitive process depending on information and innovation and enabling high employment. As known, EU Chapter on Environment has been opened to negotiations with the Intergovernmental Conference on 21 December, 2009. When this chapter was opened, people criticized that the cost of this to Turkey would be high. Harmonization with the EU Legislation on Environment is thought to cost approximately 70 billion Euros. Building new roads, schools and airports is also costly. Does this mean that we will not build them as they are costly? We should not occupy ourselves much with the cost of these, as they will enrich Turkey.

Innovation for Sustainability- European Business Awards for the Environment are presented by the European Commission to 27 EU member  states as well as to Croatia and Turkey, who are carrying out accession negotiations and these awards aim to reward sustainable success of the companies.

Source: AA