The European Parliament is to put off consideration of a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) with Turkmenistan until July.
The PCA will see trade links between the desert dictatorship and the Brussels bloc upgraded, but some Members of the European Parliament say given the current circumstances --i.e. that Turkmenistan is a human-rights black hole -- it is a step too far, too soon.
The PCA is more than a decade in the making. Relations between the EU and Turkmenistan are currently formalized through an Interim Trade Agreement containing a human rights clause which makes for good reading but appears to have no practical import.
Reporting back to the Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee (AFET) on
May 24, a number of MEPs who recently traveled to Ashgabat said there was little fresh to relay other than a new sense of willingness on the Turkmen side to entertain the European Union. (A video of the proceedings can be accessed here.)
Hannes Swoboda, an MEP from Austria, said that when the PCA eventually
makes it on the Parliament’s agenda, the preceding weeks should be used to
encourage the Turkmen authorities to admit UN special rapporteurs on
education and torture into the country.
Heidi Hautala, a Finnish MEP said, “UN bodies are not allowed to operate
freely in the country. We need to have some positive signals before we ratify the PCA; one key demand that is especially necessary is that UN rapporteurs need to be allowed in to the country, specifically [the Rapporteur on] torture.”
Turkmenistan needs to “get serious” about human rights and the EU needs to be equally serious about how the yet-to-be-ratified PCA with Ashgabat will set a “precedent” for its foreign relations in the future, she added.
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