DE FR EN IT ORIGINAL version - Introductory remarks by Martin Schulz - European Parliament President, on the recent attacks to freedom of press in Turkey, and statements & vote by the political group leaders on whether there should be a #vote and a #debate on the #CommissionWorkProgramme2015 - 15.12.2014 - EP Plenary, Strasbourg. Martin Schulz (in German): Media freedom and media pluralism are basic values of the EU and Turkey is an accession candidate with whom we are negotiating on accession. The process towards accession is something that has to be characterised by mutual respect and understanding and because that is the case, it is important for us to show whether there are advances that are being made by Turkey, but when things are going in the wrong direction they need to be pointed out as well. (...) Problems with freedom of expression and freedom of press are nothing new in Turkey, we were extremely shocked to see the raids against the press in Gezi park and yesterday once again weve seen a new round of raids on the media that is critical to the government. We are very concerned because that seems to be a sign for a very dangerous development we need to keep a close watching eye on. That applies to all aspects of democracy under the rule of law; its not a question of moving into heavy tactics of intimidation and incarceration, so I ask for the Turkish embassy to give us an explanation and I think I can say on behalf of the EP that we will be watching very closely how things go in Turkey. © Frédérick Moulin 2014 - EU2014 - All rights reserved.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 20:47:06 +0000