A photo of Marta Kos, EU commissioner responsible for enlargement, in a meeting with Turkish officials, Ankara, Feb. 6.
A senior European Union official has described Türkiye as an important partner of the bloc in establishing regional cooperation in various fields, including economy, trade and security, and vowed to deepen bilateral ties through joint concrete steps in the coming period.
“Türkiye is an important partner, and we made a good start. If we can realize the things we have discussed during our talks, this can lead to a big leap in the Turkish-EU relations,” Marta Kos, the EU commissioner responsible for enlargement, told daily Hürriyet in an interview following her talks in Ankara on Feb. 6 and 7.
Kos held extensive meetings with Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Finance Minister Mehmet Şimşek. Fidan and Kos released a joint statement following their talks.
Recent geopolitical and economic challenges push both sides to advance their ties, the commissioner said, but underlined that they need to start with confidence-building measures before taking bigger steps.
“We have to find new ways to respond to new realities. In the past, we focused on economic issues, but there are other realities. The war in Ukraine… We have seen what happened in Moldova. Russia and other autocratic countries want to see the failure of Europe,” she suggested.
This has forced the EU to better analyze with which countries partnerships should be created, Kos said. “In this context, Türkiye is one of our important partners in the economic, security and regional cooperation. Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia has brought a new dimension to the Caucasus. This can allow new cooperation between Central Asia and the EU and none of this is possible without Türkiye," she added.
New proposals on modernization of customs union
On a question about futile efforts to modernize the 30-year-old customs union between the two sides, Kos explained that this issue covered an important part of her talks with both government officials and business leaders.
“We have discussed about some concrete steps. I will raise them with the Commission and member states in my return to Brussels,” she said.
Türkiye-EU trade volume is around 210 billion Euros and the Turkish business representatives believe that this can be doubled if the customs union could be upgraded.
On a question about the EU’s industry strategy that aims to prioritize the use of the Made in Europe tag, Kos said that this initiative foresees strengthening Europe’s economic independence in the face of new geopolitical realities.
“Excluding Türkiye or leaving it behind is out of question,” she said, adding that no decision has been made yet.
Cascade model on visa works
The commissioner also emphasized that she raised the Schengen visa difficulties currently faced by Turkish citizens.
“We are observing a reduction in waiting times as the number of multiple-entry visas increases. This is just the first step, but it's a step in the right direction,” she said, recalling that the implementation of the Cascade model has already brought initial positive results.
Kos underlined that Türkiye needs to fulfill the remaining benchmarks for the implementation of visa liberalization, which would bring about concrete developments in terms of easing travel to the Schengen area.
