The visa liberalization dialogue between the EU and Turkey has been replaced by “visa facilitation” talks. Turkish citizens are having problems obtaining Schengen visas. So why has the visa dialog between Turkey and the EU stalled? Why is there a Schengen visa problem?
The negotiations between Turkey and the European Union (EU), which started in 2013 to lift the obligation to obtain a Schengen visa for Turkish citizens, have reached a deadlock due to technical and political reasons. Launched on December 16, 2013, simultaneously with the Turkey-EU Readmission Agreement, the blockage in the visa liberalization dialogue stems from internal political problems or balances in Turkey and the EU.
According to a report by DW Turkish, the Roadmap prepared for Turkey for visa liberalization includes 72 criteria. These criteria are categorized into five thematic groups: Document Security, Migration Management, Public Order and Security, Fundamental Rights and Readmission of Irregular Migrants. The European Commission has confirmed that Turkey meets 66 of these 72 criteria.
However, the remaining six criteria require political will and decision at the highest level. These criteria are listed as “revising the Anti-Terror Law, implementing the Council of Europe-GRECO (Group of States against Corruption) recommendations, adapting the Personal Data Protection Law and Institution to EU standards, ensuring judicial cooperation with all EU member states and signing an operational cooperation agreement with EUROPOL”.
ECtHR and GRECO decisions
The review of the Anti-Terror Law and the GRECO recommendations are also important as part of the dialogue and cooperation with the Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member. Ankara is obliged to take steps in these areas even though there is no visa dialogue with the EU.
There is no EU benchmark on the Anti-Terror Law. The EU wants a new legislation in this area in line with the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). The EU, like the Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member, says the current definition of terrorism in Turkey is “interpreted too broadly” based on ECtHR judgments. The ECtHR’s rulings in cases such as Osman Kavala, Selahattin Demirtaş, the ByLock file or similar cases therefore play a critical role.
Will Turkey and the EU take steps for visas?
GRECO, on the other hand, makes recommendations based on “assessment processes” that measure member states’ compliance with anti-corruption standards established by the Council of Europe. Since 2017, Turkey has been operating in GRECO’s fifth evaluation phase. This phase addresses “preventing corruption and promoting integrity in central government and law enforcement authorities”. The previous evaluation process addressed anti-corruption issues for members of parliament and judges and prosecutors.
Judicial cooperation with all EU countries is problematic in that it includes the Republic of Cyprus, an EU member state that Ankara does not recognize. In other words, even if Turkey fulfills all other criteria, as long as it does not officially recognize the Republic of Cyprus, it will at least face a veto from the Greek-Greek duo.
Intra-EU dynamics are negative
Although EU sources, particularly the European Commission, have indicated that visa liberalization is possible once these criteria are met, the current dynamics within the EU indicate that visa liberalization for Turkish citizens will not be easy.
Once Turkey fulfills the remaining six criteria and the European Commission publishes a positive report, the European Parliament (EP) and all member states must approve the visa liberalization. The EP has resolutions linking progress in the modernization of the Customs Union and the visa dialogue with Turkey to progress in the areas of “democracy, human rights and the rule of law”.
This includes the recognition of the Republic of Cyprus by Ankara. Elections for the 2024-2029 legislative term will be held on June 9th and are expected to result in a more extreme or radical right-wing majority in the EP. Such a scenario would further close the door to Turkey within the EU.
The rise of far-right and anti-EU populist parties across the EU is another factor preventing mainstream parties from bringing the Turkey file, especially visa liberalization for Turkish citizens, to the agenda in Europe. This is especially the case in Western European countries such as Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Denmark. In these countries, visa liberalization for Turkish citizens is an “unmarketable political product”.
Add to this the heated debates within Europe over the refugee issue, the fact that the highest number of asylum applicants to the EU in the last few years have been Turkish passport holders, and the skepticism towards Muslims across Europe, and it is safe to say that visa liberalization is unlikely to materialize in the short to medium term.
Visa facilitation instead of visa liberalization
This is why the “visa liberalization dialogue” between the EU and Turkey is slowly giving way to “visa facilitation” talks. Ankara, which cannot see a visa liberalization horizon for all its citizens in the short to medium term, is now pushing for visa liberalization or visa facilitation for specific groups such as business, students, artists, academics or journalists. There are talks of issuing faster and, if possible, longer Schengen visas to these groups. For tourists traveling to Schengen countries, the EU is pushing to speed up the visa issuance process, which has recently been extraordinarily slow.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, who hosted EU Commissioner for Neighborhood and Enlargement Oliver Varhelyi in Ankara last week, said after the meeting, “We are talking to EU countries one-on-one and discussing this issue with EU institutions to facilitate visa issuance, especially for business people and students.”
It will not be enough to carry out these negotiations at the technical level with the current European Commission, which will cease to exist in the coming months. The negotiations need to be conducted directly with Western European states, especially Berlin and Paris. This is because visa liberalization or visa facilitation is being consciously instrumentalized by some EU countries to extract concessions from Ankara, especially in foreign policy files. Ankara needs to negotiate with Western European governments while at the same time reforming itself to overcome this obstacle.
Turkey created visa-free Europe
Turkey’s post-WWII visa dialogue with Europe has always been hampered by internal political turmoil. However, Turkey was one of the 13 Western European countries that laid the foundations of the “visa-free Europe” concept within the Council of Europe, of which it became a member in 1949. Accordingly, until October 1980, Turkish citizens could travel to Council of Europe member states without a visa.
The visa process for Turkish citizens began on July 9, 1980, just before the September 12 military coup, when the Federal Republic of Germany announced that it would unilaterally suspend an agreement on visa-free travel for Turkish citizens that had been signed and ratified within the Council of Europe in the 1950s. Immediately after the September 12 coup, all Western European countries followed Germany’s lead.
Speaking at a plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg in 1985, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, Federal Foreign Minister of Germany, said of the visa scheme: “From October 5, 1980, we introduced visas for Turkish citizens. Moreover, this was not done unilaterally, it was done together with the Turkish government that was in power before the generals took over in Turkey. We did so because the number of Turkish nationals entering our country exceeded our ability to absorb them. I am convinced that the visa regime will continue for a long time until living conditions in Turkey reach the level of the European Community and the Council of Europe and until there are no more reasons for people to leave their country because of living conditions.”
