EU warns Turkey’s democratic decline is widening gap with membership ambitions

04.11.2026

By Turkish Minute

Source:https://www.turkishminute.com/2026/11/04/eu-warns-turkeys-democratic-decline-is-widening-gap-with-membership-ambitions/

The European Commission on Wednesday warned that Turkey’s deteriorating democratic record is taking it further from the political standards required for EU membership, despite increased cooperation between Ankara and Brussels.

In its annual enlargement policy report, the commission said intensified legal proceedings against elected officials, opposition politicians and civil society had deepened concerns about Turkey’s commitment to democratic principles.

The gap between Ankara’s declared membership ambitions and its record on the political criteria for accession had widened further, it said. The underlying reasons for the standstill in membership negotiations since 2018 remained unresolved.

The findings come amid prosecutions targeting opposition mayors and other elected officials, restrictions on independent media and operations against LGBTQ organizations.

The government says the latter measures protect children and family values, while rights groups and the EU have criticized them as restrictions on fundamental freedoms.

Turkey became an EU candidate in 1999 and opened accession negotiations in 2005. Its membership bid has stalled over concerns about human rights, judicial independence and democratic standards, along with disputes involving Cyprus.

Responding to the assessment, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry rejected the findings on political criteria, the judiciary and fundamental rights as baseless.

It called the EU’s approach “prejudiced and unfair” and accused it of double standards.

The commission also criticized Ankara’s support for a two-state settlement in Cyprus and its activities and projects on the island.

Cyprus has been divided since Turkey’s 1974 invasion following a Greek-backed coup. The Republic of Cyprus is internationally recognized, while only Ankara recognizes the breakaway Turkish Cypriot state in the north. The Republic of Cyprus, Greece and the EU reject Turkey’s proposed two-state settlement.

The ministry said the report endorsed Greek and Greek Cypriot positions while disregarding Turkish and Turkish Cypriot rights.

It also dismissed the report’s criticism of Turkey’s maritime boundary agreement with Libya as “null and void.”

The agreement, signed in 2019 with Libya’s then-internationally recognized government in Tripoli, draws a maritime boundary supporting both countries’ claims to potentially gas-rich areas of the eastern Mediterranean. Greece says it disregards its islands’ maritime rights, including those of Crete, while Ankara maintains that it complies with international law.

Libya’s eastern-based parliament approved the pact on October 20, reversing years of opposition but prompting renewed condemnation from Greece and the EU.