No EU membership if Turkey reinstates death penalty: EU members

Turkey abolished capital punishment in 2004, allowing it to open European Union accession talks the following year, but the negotiations have made scant progress since then.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to wipe out the “virus” of the putschists after facing down last week’s coup bid by elements of the military. He added that a country which had the death penalty could not be a member of the bloc.

Erdogan said there could be no delay in using capital punishment on the coup participants.

Speaking in Brussels on Monday, French foreign minister Jean-marc Ayrault said: “It would be unbelievable if death penalty was re-established in Turkey”.

“Why should I keep them and feed them in prisons, for years to come?”

The migrant deal aside, there could also be security fallout for the West from the Turkey coup.

“No country can become an EU member state if it introduces the death penalty”, EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini told reporters when asked about suggestions that EU accession candidate Turkey might execute leaders of the failed coup.

Amnesty International warned on Monday that human rights were in “grave danger”.

“Cracking down on dissent and threatening to bring back the death penalty are not justice”, he said.

The European Union and the USA also counselled Ankara against reintroducing executions.

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch Europe and Central Asia Director Hugh Williamson noted: “The speed and scale of the arrests, including of top judges, suggests a purge rather than a process based on any evidence”.

“Being part of a unique community of values, it is essential for Turkey, like all other allies, to ensure full respect for democracy and its institutions, the constitutional order, the rule of law and fundamental freedoms”, Stoltenberg said after they spoke.