The EPP Group in the European Committee of the Regions (EPP-CoR) supports the dialogue between EU and non-EU local and regional authorities, in particular in critical moments like the one we are living right now, when peer-learning and exchange of best practices are welcome in the Euro-Mediterranean region.
For this reason, the unacceptable and totally abusive and unprovoked action by the Turkish authorities which prevented on the 5th of November 2022 Apostolos Tzitzikostas, the First Vice President of the European Committee of the Regions (CoR) and chairman of the Euro-Mediterranean Regional and Local Assembly, to attend and chair the plenary session of the Assembly in Izmir, Turkey, is shameful and provocative.
By preventing members of the CoR to enter the country, as it happened on the 5th of November to Apostolos Tzitzikostas, who was detained in a police office in the port of Izmir without any explanation, the government of Turkey harms itself by creating unnecessary international tensions; ultimately it harms its own community by preventing locally elected officials to fully engage with European and Mediterranean partners, as it is wished by many Turkish Mayors.
The EPP-CoR Group strongly condemns the action of the Turkish authorities and calls for the suspension of the work of the CoR's Working Group on Turkey, scheduled to meet in Turkey in December, till full clarification is done and explanations are given by the government of Turkey on the incident involving our First Vice President in Izmir on the 5th of November 2022.