European Parliament
Claeys (NI ).
(NL)
Madam President, Commissioner, my question was, in fact, whether the Commission intends in future to send investigation teams to Turkey as soon as there are complaints about incidents of torture in that country. I think that the Commissioner will have to agree with me that Turkey is a very special candidate Member State. Today, there was an article in the German newspaper
Die Welt
stating that in Germany alone, more than 11 000 refugees have arrived since the beginning of 2003 asking for asylum on political grounds. How is this possible? Either Turkey is democratic – and political refugees do not exist – or there is a real problem.

