EU Report to Maintain Negative Outlook for Turkish Accession

German Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth said that the European Commission is going to present a negative report on Turkey’s EU accession progress, but throwing out Ankara’s bid for EU membership would be too easy and counterproductive.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The European Commission is going to present a negative report on Turkey’s EU accession progress on Wednesday, German Minister of State for Europe Michael Roth said in an interview published Tuesday.

"The EU Commission is indeed going to present a negative report, although not for the first time … The EU Commission will summarize in a very sober, clear and critical way what Turkey is doing wrong – or not doing at all, which is a lot," he told Die Welt newspaper.

Roth, who is in charge of the German Foreign Ministry’s Europe policies, described the string of post-coup arrests in Turkey as being against European values, but said throwing out Ankara’s bid for EU membership would be too easy and counterproductive.

"But who would then be victims if we were to completely end talks? Such a step would leave west-oriented Turks to fend for themselves … We must not let these people down, they already have it hard enough," Roth said.

Turkey’s crackdown on thousands of civil servants, academics and journalists strained relations between Berlin and Ankara. Roth did not rule out that Germany could consider asylum requests from persecuted Turks if they were to apply.