15 December, 2014 / By European Parliament News

Mr Schulz opened the December session with a reminder that freedom of the press and media pluralism are fundamental EU values. We take our negotiations with Turkey as a candidate country very seriously, he said, and must therefore point to problems as well as to progress.

President Schulz said he was shocked at yesterday’s raids on opposition media, which were a worrying sign. He had asked the Turkish Embassy, on behalf of the European Parliament, for an explanation and would be following developments very closely.

Agenda changes

Parliament will debate freedom of expression in Turkey and the recent media crackdown on Wednesday, with a statement by foreign affairs chief Federica Mogherini. It will vote on a resolution in January.

The votes on the six codification reports by Andrzej Duda (ECR, PL) concerning Iceland, anti-dumping, imports and exports, scheduled for this Tuesday, were postponed to a later part-session.

The House agreed that a resolution should be tabled to wind up the debate scheduled for this week on the Commission work programme for 2015. The vote on the resolution will be taken in January.

Source: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/news-room/content/20141212IPR01101/html/President-Schulz-shocked-at-media-crackdown-in-Turkey