Signs of thaw between Ankara and Brussels. Turkey has signed an agreement with the EU to allow European governments to send back illegal immigrants who cross the EU border from Turkish territory. In return, a further agreement was signed to start negotiations on the abolition of the visa requirement for Turkish visitors to Europe. A result defined as "historic" by the Turkish Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, who signed the documents yesterday in Ankara with the European Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Cecilia Malmstroem. “The door to a visa-free Europe is now open – commented the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan -. We will undoubtedly respect all the commitments undertaken”. The readmission agreement will enter into force three years after its ratification by the Turkish Grand Assembly, not before 2017. During this period, Turkish citizens should be allowed to enter the EU without a visa.
The new agreement marks an important step along the road that could lead the European Union to accept Turkey's application for membership. "I am certain that between July and December 2014 the Italian presidency of the EU will be very ready to give impetus to these negotiations which have been interrupted for too long", said Franco Frattini, president of SIOI (Italian Society for International Organization) yesterday, during the of a conference organized in Rome in the presence of the Turkish ambassador in Italy, Hakki Akil.
Last October, Brussels reopened negotiations with Ankara, which had been stalled for three years now. Turkey has been a candidate since 1999, but the negotiations, officially started only in 2005, proved to be the most difficult that an aspiring member of the EU has ever had to face. In particular, Ankara suffers from the reservations of France and Germany, in addition to the lack of agreement with Cyprus, of which the Turkish army has occupied the northern part since 1974. On the first front, however, some glimmers are opening: again yesterday, Erdogan announced that in January he will visit Brussels and that on the 27th and 28th of the same month he will welcome the French president François Hollande in Turkey.
“Ankara is fundamental for the political stabilization of the Middle East – underlined Frattini again -, just think of the improvement in relations with Iraqi Kurdistan, of the role it has been able to play in the Caucasus, where we are experiencing moments of difficulty in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, to its ability to achieve a normalization of relations with Israel and to play an important role in the Mediterranean and in the Syrian crisis". Furthermore, on the economic front, the former foreign minister recalled that Turkey is "a real hub through which infrastructures essential to Europe's energy security pass".
Ankara's current international positioning reflects the results achieved in terms of growth: “In the last 10 years we have more than tripled the GDP, which went from 232 to over 800 billion dollars – specified Akil -. Our debt-to-GDP ratio has dropped from 90 to 36% and we now export to 142 countries. This development has forced us to act in favor of Middle Eastern political stability, without which, in the future, our growth would be destined to stop".
