The second day of the EU Summit began at around 11 am with the situation in the Eastern Mediterranean and Turkish provocations on the table.
According to Reuters, Greece and Cyprus have been pushing for a tougher European Union response to Turkey’s aggressive actions in the Eastern Mediterranean after Ankara resumed operations on a research vessel.
“An effort will be made to give a strong warning (to Turkey)”, said a senior EU diplomat quoted by the agency.
The discussion on EU-Turkey relations was the first foreign policy issue discussed by the “27”, as announced by the representative of Charles Michel.
At #EUCO @eucopresident has now started debate on other foreign issues. First on #EU-Turkey relations pic.twitter.com/jJWBZtQozj
— Barend Leyts (@BarendLeyts) October 16, 2020
Government spokesman Petsas: The feeling is that Europe’s patience has run out
“The feeling that exists is that Turkey has proved its unreliability”, government spokesman Stelios Petsas told ERT1 on Friday morning.
“Even some countries, which believed that Turkey would do what it says, were refuted by the developments of recent days”, Mr Petsas said. He continued: “Therefore, we have a climate that shows that Europe’s patience has run out, because Europe has been deceived by Turkey”.
The government spokesman stressed that there is “a three-fold framework: the first is a clear condemnation of Turkey’s provocation in both Famagusta and the Eastern Mediterranean”. The second point is that we have to go one step further than the previous conclusions of the European Council of 1 and 2 October, because we have two clear violations of two points, point 18 and point 20 of the previous conclusions by Turkey, so we can not idle and the third is to clarify either the support measures for Turkey -if it withdraws from the challenges- or the sanctions, if Turkey continues the provocations”.
