Özgür Özel speaks at budget negotiations

The 2024 Budget Negotiations began today at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) General Assembly.

CHP Chairman Özgür Özel delivered a speech on behalf of his party as part of the negotiations. In his speech, Özel stated that his party would vote against the budget.

Here are Özel's statements:

"Budget speeches contain the debates of the day, but because they are included in the minutes, they must also speak to the future.

We are the path of those who tore up the Treaty of Sèvres and signed the Treaty of Lausanne. The others are the path of those who signed Sèvres. One is the path of those who stood against the leftist students who resisted the 6th Fleet when it arrived. Our path is the path of those who drove the 6th Fleet into the sea. Our path declares constitutionalism and establishes parliaments; the other path is the one that suspended the constitution with the April 17 referendum.

"AKP COULD NOT EVEN MEET HALF OF ITS TARGET"

It was 2009. AKP's esteemed Chairman Recep Tayyip Erdoğan came out and said that this nation has been lying in the same direction for 200 years. Going back 200 years, we encounter the Charter of Alliance (Sened-i İttifak), the first time the powers of a single man were debated. I would like to record here that Erdoğan made an objection regarding the transition from a single-man regime to democracy. The AKP has been in power alone for the last 20 years. It made all the budgets itself. It was putting this forward: We will place Turkey among the 10 largest economies. While the per capita national income target set by the AKP for 2023 was 25 thousand dollars, it was realized as 11 thousand dollars; it is not even half of the target.

Strategic investments for energy and food security were expected, but these investments were not made. As a political party that defends the social state and prioritizes efficient production, we would have liked to see a budget that produces solutions to the food, health, housing, and energy crises. Such a budget was not presented.

I would like to remind you that the 2024 budget, in addition to being the first budget of the second century of the Republic, is the first budget after the February 6 earthquakes.

TOUCHED ON THE TAX ISSUE

The issue that will keep you awake is this tax system, and you will vote on this tonight. You have a minister, Mehmet Şimşek, who was supposed to come before the election but didn't, who wants election guarantees, who says 'I know best,' and who says that those who tell him otherwise are wrong, and who, in his own words, will do rational things... Last week, he said that taxes need to be spread to the base. It is time to spread the tax system not to the base, but to the top, where 89 percent is paid by the poor and 1 percent by the wealthy."

News Source: 12punto