TURKEY HAS MADE SIGNIFICANT REFORMS

Internal Coordination and Harmonization Committee (IKUK) which was established in order to coordinate the work carried out regarding the harmonization with the EU acquis and accession negotiations, convened for the 12th time and chaired by Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis.

The meeting was held at the Ministry for EU Affairs with the participation of “EU Permanent Contact Persons” from public institutions and organizations.

At the meeting during which the recent developments regarding the EU accession process were addressed, the progress made within the context of Positive Agenda and the steps necessary to be taken during the Irish Presidency were discussed.

Mentioning about the pace of reforms in Turkey during his speech, Minister Bagis reminded that he expressed his opinions regarding European Commission’s 2012 Turkey Progress and continued as follows:

“We did not only share some unfair points of the Progress Report with the public opinion, but also wrote our own progress report. When you look through the Turkish version of the progress report that we are going to share with the public opinion in a few days, you will see that actually significant reforms have been realized in Turkey in 2012. I claim this, and I say so by underlining. Today, there is not even one EU member country that can catch up with reform pace of Turkey.  The EU member countries do not have the performance that our parliament and our institutions have; they do not have the amount of laws and regulations that we adopted, and the determination that we show in the implementation process. However, we will never be trapped by the tricks of the ones who are trying to make us throw up the sponge.  We will continue our reforms to increase our citizens’ standard of living by showing our determination.”