Turkey decision of PACE: political monitoring after 13 years

PACE held a special meeting to discuss the developments in Turkey. 

During the session, a vote was taken for deciding whether monitoring will be reopened for Turkey. By majority of votes, it was decided to reopen monitoring procedure.

Turkey had passed this procedure in 2004. 

Monitoring procedure currently applies to Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Moldova, Russian Federation, Serbia and Ukraine. 

What is monitoring procedure?

This procedure was launched after the Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when former Soviet regimes were becoming EU members, in order to monitor adoption and application of the norms in terms of democracy, human rights and rule of law that were put forward by Council of Europe in 1949.

The procedure usually applies to countries that newly become a member of Council of Europe with the purpose of monitoring whether these countries realize the promises of pre-membership. 

In 1996, monitoring procedure was applied to Turkey, which is a founding member of Council of Europe, on the ground that there were problems in terms of democratization and violation of human rights were still at play in the country. 

Ankara managed to pass this procedure in 2004 thanks to certain reforms and ascended to post-monitoring dialogue. 

This development played an important part in the beginning of EU membership talks.