German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said she wants to end Turkey’s application for European Union membership.
While debating with her Social Democratic Party rival in elections being held later this month, Merkel said she will ask the EU to call off membership talks with Turkey, amid rising tensions between Berlin and Ankara.
‘I don’t see them ever joining and I had never believed that it would happen,’ she said during a televised debate, adding that she will speak with her EU counterparts to see if ‘we can end these membership talks’.
She added: ‘The fact is clear that Turkey should not become a member of the EU.’
Fiery: While debating with her Social Democratic Party rival in elections being held later this month, Merkel said she will ask the EU to call off membership talks with Turkey, amid rising tensions between Berlin and Ankara
Grand arrival: Chancellor Angela Merkel steps out of her car to head into the TV studio for her debate with Martin Schulz
‘I don’t see them ever joining and I had never believed that it would happen,’ Merkel said during a televised debate, adding that she will speak with her EU counterparts to see if ‘we can end these membership talks’
In a fiery debate with Martin Schulz in Berlin, Merkel was attacked for failing to coordinate a better European response to the 2015 refugee crisis.
‘The inclusion of our European neighbours would have been better,’ Schulz said at the start of the only debate between the two top candidates before the September 24 federal vote.
Merkel, 63, shot back: ‘We had a very dramatic situation then … There are times in the life of a chancellor when she has to decide.’
Merkel’s tough stance came after Turkey arrested two more German citizens this past week ‘for political reasons’, infuriating Berlin.
The arrests brought the number of German political prisoners in Turkish custody to 12, at a time when ties between the two NATO allies were already at an all-time low.
The plunge in relations began after Berlin sharply criticised Ankara over the crackdown that followed last year’s failed coup attempt.
The arrest of several German nationals, including the Turkish-German journalist Deniz Yucel, the Istanbul correspondent for the Die Welt newspaper, further frayed ties.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, has also sparked outrage after charging that Germany is sheltering plotters of last year’s coup, as well as Kurdish militants and terrorists, and demanded their extradition.
Mrs Merkel added: ‘The fact is clear that Turkey should not become a member of the EU’
Fans: Angela Merkel’s supporters cheer in front of a television studio for the only live televised debate of the election
Erdogan added to the tensions this month when he urged ethnic Turks in Germany to vote against Merkel’s conservatives and their coalition partners, the Social Democrats, in September 24 elections.
The escalating tensions have split the Turkish community in Europe’s top economy, the largest diaspora abroad, which is a legacy of Germany’s ‘guest worker’ programme of the 1960s and 70s.
The Social Democrats are lagging Merkel’s conservatives by some 13 percentage points ahead of the vote, in which she is seeking a fourth term.
Schulz, 61, has called Merkel ‘aloof’ and attacked her on a range of issues but failed to dent her lead. The debate is seen as one of his last chances to shift the momentum.
Critic: Martin Schulz attacked Merkel over her handling of 2015’s migrant crisis, saying: ‘The inclusion of our European neighbours would have been better’
Merkel’s 2015 decision to open Germany’s borders to hundreds of thousands of refugees, many fleeing war in the Middle East, cost her support but she has since bounced back.
The first half of the debate was dominated by a discussion about migration and integration.
Schulz, a former European Parliament president with no national government experience in Germany, also said he would stop membership talks between Turkey and the European Union if elected chancellor.
But Schulz said the EU’s external borders ‘cannot and should not be closed’.