The 46-nation Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities has reported a “generally degrading situation” with regard to local democracy in Turkey.

In its latest report on Turkey’s application of the European Charter of Local Self-Government, the Congress welcomes the impressive turnout (over 84%) in local elections in 2019 – one of the highest rates across the Council of Europe, demonstrating a strong interest in local self-government.

However, the Congress expresses particular concerns on a number of issues, including the fact that the government continues to suspend mayors when a criminal investigation is opened against them – based on an overly-broad definition of terrorism – and replace them with non-elected officials.

This seriously undermines the democratic choice of Turkish citizens, according to the Congress, and impedes the proper functioning of local democracy in Turkey.

Among other things, the Congress calls on the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers to ask the Turkish authorities to modify the definition of terrorism in the current domestic legislation, in a way not allowing for overly-broad interpretation, to stop suspending mayors without court decisions and to ensure that winning candidates can effectively carry out their mandate.

The Congress also undertakes to strengthen its dialogue with the national authorities, the Turkish delegation to the Congress and the Union of Municipalities of Turkey in order to boost local democracy in the country, in line with the European Charter.

See also :

 Mediabox interview

 Speech of David Eray

 Speech of Vladimir Prebilic

 Video of the debate

 Report CG(2022)42-14-AMDT

For further information :

Monitoring of the European Charter of Local Self-Government

Contact: Andrew Cutting, Spokesperson/Media Officer, Directorate of Communications, Council of Europe, tel. +32 485 21 72 02

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42nd Session 

Agenda – Web page – Multimedia (Live broadcast, interviews, videos and photos)