Turkey has submitted a formal request to participate in the SAFE programme for the defence armouring of Europe, according to an Euronews report which cites statements by European Commission spokesman Toma Renier on the receipt of the request.

“I confirm that we have received an official request from Turkey,” said spokesman Toma Renier, who, citing confidentiality reasons, refused to elaborate further on Turkey’s request and was content to explain the current state of negotiations with other third countries.

Asked by Euronews about the EU’s safeguards against countries threatening member states, Toma Renier replied, “What I can say to reassure you, you and all citizens and member states, is that we of course did not come up with such a regulation all of a sudden. Of course, we have safeguards in place.”

In his official statements, the spokesman declined to confirm that these safeguards were specific to Turkey. He could not, after all, because that would violate Commission policy. However, he made sure to answer implicitly but clearly.

“Generally speaking, we have safeguards to protect the interests of our member states, our industry. This is mentioned in Article 16 of the security regulation, which says that if a third country violates in some way the interests, the security interests of one of our member states or the EU as a whole, we will have the possibility to exclude it from participating in our security instrument.”
He noted.