Dombrovskis: “Turkey is interested in joining the single euro payments area”

Brussels – “Turkey has expressed an interest in joining the Single Euro Payments Area.”  The Commissioner for the Economy, Valdis Dombrovskis, announced one of the main outcomes of the EU-Turkey high-level economic dialogue in Ankara. Organised to give new impetus to bilateral relations, the meeting appears to have lived up to its expectations and promises. 

The Single Euro Payments Area (SEPA) defines the geographical area within which everyone, citizens and businesses alike, can carry out transactions in euros, whether these are credit transfers or payments. SEPA currently comprises all EU Member States, the United Kingdom, the members of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA, comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway, and Switzerland), the European microstates (Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, and Vatican City) and five candidate countries (Albania, North Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro, and Serbia), making a total of 41 countries. 

Dombrovskis gives no indication of the next steps, but Turkey’s entry into the euro payments area is seen as a crucial step forward, not only in terms of Turkey’s accession process, which remains on hold, but also given the EU’s perceived need to forge strong relations with a partner that is more crucial than ever. Ankara hosts the second-largest NATO contingent, an organisation from which Donald Trump’s United States is withdrawing, and the Euro-Turkish ties are “strategic relations in a fragmented world,” the Commissioner for the Economy points out. 

The European Commission’s stated aim is to establish “a strong and reliable partnership” with Turkey, and in this regard “it is in our mutual interest to explore new avenues of cooperation in new areas.” Payments appear to be one such area where work needs to be done. But there is also the green economy, on which work is beginning in an entirely new way: the European Commission and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (BERS) have signed an agreement for a €5.7 million investment in the Turkish platform for the decarbonisation of the economy.