European Union: Turkish Accession

Lord Howe of Aberavon Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I agree with my noble friend. She referred to Chapter 23. Chapter 24 covers justice, freedom and security. In the light of what is happening in Turkey now, it is vital that progress is made on these chapters. We are a strong advocate for progress—momentum is a priority—to deal with, if nothing else, the immediate challenges within Turkey.

[Lord Howe of Aberavon (Con)]

My Lords, there is one substantial piece of history which I think the House would like to hear: that is, the simple fact that Turkey has been for a long time a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the British Foreign Secretary, not just for alphabetical reasons, finds himself sitting for the United Kingdom alongside Turkey’s equivalent at all the regular meetings of that kind. I can give very strong evidence of the value of Turkey’s presence in that structure. It would certainly be beneficial to find Turkey acceding to the European Union as well. For the benefit of foreign, security and defence policy, it would be right to support the accession of Turkey into the EU.

[Baroness Warsi]

My noble friend makes an important point. Of course I agree with him that Turkey plays an influential role in NATO. It contributes peacekeeping troops to KFOR in Kosovo, in addition to the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Turkey played a significant role in NATO’s mission in Libya. That shows how in many ways our interests are aligned with Turkey’s security interests.