IKV PRESS RELEASE 

25 JUNE 2015

ON THE ROAD TO VISA FREE EUROPE, LAST YEAR’S SCHENGEN VISA BILL

FOR TURKEY IS 48.8 MILLION EUROS

Exactly one year ago today, the Grand National Assembly of Turkey has ratified the Readmission Agreement which was signed between Turkey and the EU. This constituted an important turning point for the Turkish citizens on the road to visa free Europe.  During the last year, a total of 813,339 short term (Type C) Schengen visa applications were made by Turkish citizens costing 48.8 million euros in an optimistic scenario. Without doubt, the EU’s visa restriction towards Turkish citizens continues to cause discrimination and financial burden.

IKV Junior Researcher Ahmet Ceran assessed the developments over the last year regarding the Readmission Agreement and the visa liberalization dialogue process as follows:

“In the process of the Visa Liberalization Dialogue started with the mutual signing of the Readmission Agreement by Turkey and the EU in 2013, the European Commission assessed that Turkey fulfilled or almost fulfilled the requirements in 22 criteria; partially fulfilled requirements in 40 criteria; and did not fulfill requirements in 10 criteria out of the 72 technical criteria. Ever since the European Commission published its first report on the progress made by Turkey in terms of fulfilling the requirements of its visa liberalization roadmap on 20 October 2014, it could be observed with regret that reforms to be carried out for the visa liberalization dialogue have not been prioritized because of the general election environment in Turkey. Some of the legislative actions foreseen until the end of 2015 according to the action plans for the year 2015, especially in the areas of  data protection, integrated border management and readmission mechanisms that would affect the visa liberalization dialogue to a greater extend, have not been implemented thus threatening the future of the process. Besides, some fundamental issues regarding the migration policies of the EU that has become chronic continue to constitute serious source of concerns. While certain countries that form the Southern borders of the EU have to manage the migration crisis; Northern countries have not joined forces towards easing the Southern countries’ burden. It could be observed that both Turkey as the host of two million Syrian refugees and the EU, provider of humanitarian aid amounting to an estimated of 3.6 billion euro for people who suffered from the Syrian crisis, share common problems in regard to border and migration management. Therefore, it is important for both sides to take a joint position to overcome these common problems. Burden-sharing is quite important for the future of the visa liberalization dialogue and the opening of Chapter 23 and 24 to the accession negotiations. Positive developments within this area would most probably help establishing a positive atmosphere both among the Turkish and European public opinion.”

THE EU’S TOUGHEST TEST ON MIGRATION MANAGEMENT

IKV Junior Researcher Ahmet Ceran further pursued as follows: “Since the ratification of the Readmission Agreement by the Turkish Parliament on 25 June 2014, it is possible to assert that, EU does not exhibit a successful performance when analyzing Europe’s scorecard regarding the migration management. One may recall, in April 2015 to the marine accident which made Mediterranean bloodshed and caused the life of 900 people. This accident was recorded as the deadliest migrant tragedy in the EU’s history. Over the past year, it can be observed that EU did not ensure the effective control in the East Mediterranean route which constitutes the EU’s most crisis migration area. From this point on, the European Commission shared on 13 May 2015  the new migration agenda which aims for better management of all aspects of migration in Europe. Under the EU's new migration agenda, the establishment of a new contact point in Turkey for the increase mutual coordination is also being discussed.”