Minister Fidan: There is no process that cannot move forward when the EU wants to accept it

Foreign Minister Fidan responded to questions and criticisms from members of parliament during the deliberations on his Ministry's 2026 budget at the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM) Planning and Budget Committee. Regarding a question directed at him about the budget allocated for the Private Office expenses for the 2026 budget, Minister Fidan stated, "I also truly asked, 'what is this money?' I don't really have a need for that much. We will change that money now with a motion. They asked where we should put the money for the NATO Summit. They put it in the private office budget. They also put the Antalya Diplomacy Forum there. This money belongs there. Now I told my colleagues. I don't want to see it there. Do whatever is necessary, put them in the budget of the General Directorate of Protocol, I don't want to see them in the private office. We don't have any business with that much money anyway," he expressed.

Emphasizing that all general managers and deputy general managers related to diplomatic issues in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs are appointed based on merit from career backgrounds, Minister Fidan said, "The friends here are friends who come from career backgrounds. Their deputies are also from career backgrounds. There is no one who has become a general manager and, when their turn came, could not become an ambassador. The issue of appointing ambassadors from outside is a matter of political discretion and will in democracies in a different style.

In our ministry, there is no one who has been a general manager, completed their turn, and has not been appointed. There is no one who has been a deputy general manager, whose turn has come, and has not been appointed. We already have more than enough representative offices. Because very few people were recruited in the past, these elite diplomatic cadres are here. All the friends who look after political departments are friends who come from career backgrounds. The general manager friends are those who require expertise. In other words, I had to bring in from outside the friends that the Ministry could not train in its own field, who should be permanent in the ministry. This is my debt to this homeland. In this ministry, nothing is given to anyone just to give them a position. If you are going to appoint an IT specialist, you bring in an IT specialist," he spoke.

Regarding gender equality among employees in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Minister Fidan stated the following:

"The Ministry of Foreign Affairs is the ministry with the highest percentage of female managers and female personnel within the system, and I said it last time as well; for the first time in the history of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, after I became Minister, we proudly appointed a colleague, Ms. Berris, to the highest title. Previously, there had not been a female colleague who had reached that title."

Stating that more than 60 million tourists come to Turkey every year, Minister Fidan pointed out that many of the visiting tourists come through visa applications, saying, "Our Minister of Tourism (Mehmet Nuri Ersoy) wants me to lift the visa for as many countries as possible. We have consultations with him from time to time. But when we issue visas, frankly, we approach it from the perspective of the countries that ask us for visas.

Let's say, a person says I want to bring a patient. When they come, are they really a patient coming to the hospital, or will they be here in another way? There are many detailed issues. This visa issue is important. To manage this better, we did something that hadn't been done before. We gathered all our consuls general. As you know, with a decision we made two years ago, we changed our organizational structure. We established a separate general directorate that carries out consular services and a separate general directorate that carries out visa procedures so that we separated the services for foreigners and Turkish citizens as an area of expertise. We called our consuls general and consuls, who are our most important elements working for us in the field on this issue. We held a workshop here. We held a very detailed workshop," he included.

"IT IS AN EXAGGERATION"

Regarding the claims that the Turkish passport is 'devaluing', Minister Fidan said, "There is one door where we have a problem with visas, the EU door. All 27 countries you go to are applications to the EU. There is no initiative from these countries themselves. They all give you a visa from a common database, with common criteria, common control mechanisms, and quotas. Therefore, the expression 'We went to every country. Our passport has lost its prestige, doors are closing in our faces' is a bit of an exaggeration here. There is no such thing here. 27 countries have actually become one country. One country imposes restrictions on you. For two reasons, it thinks that when your young people go, they will stay there. Why does it think so? The migration issue within itself has become an issue that incredibly changes the internal political equation. Political structures, governments are changing just because of this issue. They have linked the rise of the far-right to immigrant mobility. Especially, to Muslim immigrant mobility and receiving migration from certain Muslim countries. Now, because the European is modern in quotation marks, they cannot say I don't want Muslims. Therefore, they can introduce some unnamed, covert practices. We are trying to bring these to a point with European counterparts by identifying them one-on-one in the field and following up on them. But here, of course, the stage that should be reached after developing this much interdependence should have been the visa liberalization stage. In other words, there is such a thing in Europe's normal adventure. Now you have 230 billion euros of mutual trade and you do this trade together. Apart from that, there is incredible social mobility, student mobility, business person mobility. There are Turks living there. The only thing that will make this mobility possible is visa liberalization. Europe is also aware of this, but due to identity politics, due to the identity politics it brings to the agenda in its relations with Turkey, Europe has suspended certain issues," he assessed.

"FRANCE PUT FORWARD A CLEARER WILL"

Reminding that the process was suspended after 2019 in Turkey's EU membership due to both the events in Syria and the stance Turkey took in the Eastern Mediterranean, Fidan said, "When the European Union opens chapters, there is nothing more normal than it evaluating us based on the criteria in the chapters. It opens a chapter and says 'Your place here is faulty, fix this. Your place here is faulty, fix this' or 'let's carry these out together.' But this will does not exist. In other words, this will was frozen in 2007. When I talk to Europeans, I say we need to go back to the 'pre-Sarkozy period.' Sarkozy came, and together with Merkel, that period said, 'Turkey is going to a historical point. EU membership will be inevitable in this process. We were not ready for such a definition when we were defining the European Union.' They were not visionary. Two reasons, in other words, they demonstrated a will regarding not including a Muslim country within themselves. The two driving forces of Europe. France put forward a clearer will. Germany remained silent here," he said. "There is no process that cannot move forward when the EU wants to accept it. In a place where the parties here are present, when there is this much will, this much desire, this much enlightenment, this happens once. Do we not have certain mistakes? We have mistakes. Can they not be corrected? They can be easily corrected. But this does not change the anomaly we face in our membership relationship with the EU. They first need to demonstrate a will," he said.

"IT IS A HISTORICAL NECESSITY"

Regarding the Cyprus issue question directed at him, Fidan noted that for the first time a question about foreign policy other than Syria came from the DEM Party, and said, "On the Cyprus issue, at the point we have reached, the existence of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a historical necessity for us. When it is explained, it is explained like this. There is a lack of actors. It is explained as if there are two actors. In this Cyprus issue, there are Turkish Cypriots, and there is Turkey. Whatever we want will happen. Now, let's take a look, I find it useful to remind of recent history again," he spoke.

News Source: 12punto