“H Turkey is a candidate for accession (to the European Union), but you know that in the context of the accession negotiations no new chapter has been opened for a long time,” said the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Germany Sebastian Fischer, answering a question about the federal government’s position on Turkey’s possible EU accession.

Responding to the same question, Deputy Government Spokesperson Christiane Hoffmann stated that she understood the background of the question, but pointed out that the news (no. about the connection by the President of Turkey Tayyip Erdogan of his consent to the accession of Sweden to NATO with the resumption of his country’s accession negotiations in the EU) was made known only a short while ago and was limited to stating that he “concerns the response” from the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 and was declared a candidate country in 1999. Accession negotiations officially began in 2005, but after “the continued setback in matters of democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights”, the European Union suspended the process in June 2018.

In the programmatic agreement for the formation of the governing coalition in 2021, the three parties (SPD, Greens, FDP), state: “Turkey is an important partner for Germany and a neighbor of the EU, with which we maintain multifaceted relations. For this reason we have a special interest in a good relationship with Turkey. Democracy, the rule of law and the human rights situation have been deteriorating for some time in Turkey. For this reason, we neither wish to open nor close chapters in the accession negotiations. The liberalization of the travel visa regime and the expansion of the Customs Union are only possible when Turkey meets the required conditions.”