The European Parliament’s Turkey rapporteur, Nacho Sanchez Amor, said visa-free travel for Turkish citizens remains in the hands of the Turkish government, criticizing Ankara for seeking to ease travel restrictions by expanding the use of special “green” passports.
Amor made the remarks during a meeting with a group of Turkish journalists in Brussels on Monday.
Addressing the longstanding issue of visa liberalization, Amor said responsibility for completing the process lies with Ankara.
“Out of the 72 benchmarks required for visa liberalization, only six remain,” he said. “However, senior officials do not appear very interested in completing them and instead prefer to address the problem through green and service passports.”
He was referring to six criteria Turkey has to meet as part of its EU membership bid for visa-free travel to the EU, the most important being the easing of its counterterrorism and data protection laws.
Green passports, officially known as special passports, allow visa-free travel to many countries, including those in the Schengen area and are issued to certain Turkish public officials and professionals.
Amor’s remarks come as the Turkish Parliament is considering proposals to expand eligibility for green passports to additional professional groups, including engineers, architects and physicians.
Supporters say expanding the program would facilitate professional mobility, strengthen Turkey’s participation in international projects and help address concerns about “brain drain” by demonstrating state support for highly skilled professionals.
Green passports are currently issued mainly to certain senior civil servants, former lawmakers and ministers, some mayors, state-recognized athletes, eligible businesspeople involved in export activities and lawyers who have been registered with a bar association for at least 15 years.
Over the past years frustration with the Schengen process has grown in Turkey amid rising rejection rates and long delays.
According to European Union data, Turkish citizens filed 1,173,917 Schengen visa applications in 2024. Of those, 993,875 were approved. The figures indicate that about 14.5 percent of applications from Turkey were rejected that year.
The Turkish government has been urging the EU to ease restrictions and revive stalled visa liberalization talks.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has said the current system limits Turkish citizens’ mobility and damages bilateral ties.
The EU said it is working to improve transparency and reduce waiting times but stressed that core procedures and requirements remain in place.
Amor also said discussions about a “strategic partnership” between Turkey and the European Union have increasingly overshadowed the country’s stalled membership bid.
“The more you appear as a ‘partner’ with the EU, the less you are treated as a ‘candidate country,’” Amor said, noting that with Turkey’s accession process effectively frozen, other aspects of the relationship — including trade, energy and gas cooperation — have come to the fore.
Turkey and the EU began membership talks in 2005, but the process has been at a standstill in recent years.
Countries aspiring to become members must align their laws and legislation in 35 policy areas, or negotiating chapters.
EU leaders agreed in 2018 that no new chapters in Turkey’s accession negotiations should be opened or closed.