The Federation of Western Thrace Turks in Europe (ABTTF) participated on 10 November 2022 in the Fundamental Rights Platform (FRP) annual meeting 2022 organised by the European Union (EU) Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA). ABTTF International Affairs Director Melek Kırmacı Arık attended the online meeting themed on the rule of law in the EU.
The meeting, which was held in line with the 2022 Rule of Law Annual Report published by the European Commission and attended by approximately 110 people, started with the opening speech of FRA Director Michael O’Flaherty.
Intervening in the first part of the meeting titled ‘‘State of play of the rule of law in the EU’’, Commissioner for Justice Didier Reynders noted that the European Commission’s annual report on the rule of law prepared by the European Commission contains sections and recommendations specific to the 27 EU Member States. Furthermore, Reynders indicated that the first tool in implementing these recommendations is dialogue with the EU Member States, but if the recommendations are not implemented, other means, including deductions from EU funds, can also be enforced.
Speaking at the session on the implementation of rulings of the supranational European courts from the simultaneous workshops held in the second part of the meeting titled ‘‘Civil society and the rule of law – practical tools’’, ABTTF delivered information about the associations of the Turkish community in Western Thrace with respect to the Bekir-Ousta and the Others Group of Cases. ABTTF noted that Greece has not executed the judgments of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) on the aforementioned group of cases, which includes the Xanthi Turkish Union (XTU), the Cultural Association of Turkish Women of the Prefecture of Rodopi and the Evros Prefecture Minority Youth Association, for more than 14 years. Stating that the applicant associations and non-governmental organisations used the tools available to the applicant associations and non-governmental organisations to determine what the non-governmental organisations could do, ABTTF indicated that the non-execution of the ECtHR judgments was not only related to the violation of the rights but that rather there were political reasons behind it. Moreover, ABTTF stated that the main reason behind the non-execution of the ECtHR judgments in the Bekir-Ousta and Others Group of Cases in Greece lies in the lack of desire to recognise the Turkish identity of the Turkish community in Western Thrace, and that for this reason, Greece persistently does not execute the ECtHR judgments in this politicised group of cases.
