ISTANBUL
A British official has praised Turkey’s adherence to EU criteria, saying it shows that the country is determined to enhance efforts to improve its human rights procedures.
Rafe Courage, U.K. deputy consul general in Istanbul, was speaking at a Turkish EU ministry meeting Friday to publicize procedures where Turkish citizens can make individual human rights complaints.
Courage said his country supported Turkey’s EU efforts to join the bloc.
His comments came after Turkey's EU minister, Volkan Bozkir, announced a new 'action plan' detailing the country's future steps towards joining the bloc Thursday.
The plan, called the ‘National Program for the Adoption of the EU Acquis,’ will see new legislation to make headway in policy areas, or 'chapters' which every candidate country needs to fulfill to become an EU member.
Today’s meeting was just one which was taking place across six Turkish provinces, attempting to introduce the procedures by which individual Turkish citizens can bring human rights complaints.
In a 2010 referendum Turkey made a number of high-level changes to its constitution to bring it into line with European Union standards.
With the referendum Turkish citizens were granted the right to make individual complaints to Turkey’s Constitutional Court after all domestic remedies were used.
An ombudsman’s office was also set up to resolve problems between state and citizen.
An official from Turkey’s Ministry for EU Affairs, Ege Erkocak, said today that the aim of the project was to make sure that these institutions for human rights are used effectively.
Turkey applied for EU membership in 1987 for the first time. Accession talks began in 2005.
So far, 14 'chapters' have been opened, while 17 remain blocked and a further four have yet to be discussed. Only one chapter has been opened in the past three years.
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