The European Parliament declared Tuesday that Turkey's EU membership process cannot be restarted under current condition...

The European Parliament declared Tuesday that Turkey's EU membership process cannot be restarted under current conditions, with the rapporteur on Turkey's accession report telling the Strasbourg plenary that after a decade of waiting, there is an "absolute lack of willingness" from Ankara to align with European principles. Nacho Sanchez Amor, a Spanish Socialist and the author of the Parliament's Turkey report, said flatly that "Turkey is now a genuinely authoritarian country" and questioned what place an authoritarian state has inside the EU. He acknowledged that a civil society exists in Turkey that wants democracy rather than authoritarianism, and said the Parliament does not want to "kill their last hope," but stressed that the rule of law and human rights are non-negotiable prerequisites. Accession negotiations have "rightly been frozen," he said, and cannot resume without concrete internal changes. Sanchez Amor also condemned the detention of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu and the intimidation of activists, calling these actions a direct obstacle to any progress. He specifically named Greece and Cyprus as critical and inseparable pillars of any future EU-Turkey relationship framework, signaling that their concerns cannot be sidelined in any future talks. EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos echoed those concerns, calling Turkey a "key partner, NATO ally, and candidate country" while admitting there has been "no tangible progress on the rule of law and fundamental freedoms" and that the situation has actually regressed since 2018. She cited the imprisonment of the Istanbul mayor alongside prosecutions of politicians, journalists, and business figures as factors undermining political pluralism. She was direct: without rule of law progress, accession negotiations will not resume. The Parliament's full report, approved by the Foreign Affairs Committee in late April, is set for a plenary vote on Wednesday after a month of amendments. Turkey currently hosts around 2.3 million refugees and remains the EU's fifth-largest trading partner, giving Brussels continued incentive to manage the relationship carefully even as the membership door stays effectively sh...