CHAPTERS 23 AND 24 SHOULD BE OPENED

Saying that during the accession negotiations they believe to meet the possible criteria for the opening of the chapters 23 and 24, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said “It is the shame of EU rather than Turkey that the chapters of 23 and 24 were not opened to negotiations.”

Egemen Bagis participated in the closing ceremony of “Judicial and Fundamental Rights for Lawyers Training Project” with the Minister of Justice Sadullah Ergin. In his speech, Bagis said that today Turkey achieved more when compared with the EU countries.

Egemen Bagis indicated that Turkey was currently experiencing the most transparent period in its history on judiciary. Stating that the justice was an extremely important issue, Bagis said “We regret to observe once again the importance of being the social state of Turkey with the recent events. As a democratic, secular and social law state, Turkey always adopts the rule of law.”

Stating that Turkey was determined in attaining a democracy with higher standards with or without the EU and he told that they took important steps on judiciary and fundamental rights. Bagis said that they believed to meet the possible criteria for the opening of the chapter 23 and 24, and he continued his speech as follows:

“Why I say possible opening criteria: actually we face a great contradiction of the EU. 2 years ago, 27 member countries came together and they said “judiciary and fundamental right is so important for us that candidate countries cannot open other chapters without opening these two chapters and 27 member countries has prioritized these chapters unanimously. Today Turkey has opened 14 chapters. We cannot open these two chapters although %95 of the criticism directed towards Turkey either in progress reports or official statements are related to these two Chapters. And the only reason for this is that the Southern Greek Cypriot Administration has blocked the opening of these two Chapters in the accession negotiations. Yesterday, Trabzonspor has opened the football chapter. I hope the EU will open the other two chapters.

Not opening the chapters 23 and 24 is the shame of EU rather than Turkey.”