“We are coming to power. We are commencing our long march. We are running for power.”
1. The promotion of social state, built upon, inter alia, the following pillars.
- Fight againist poverty through increasing employment in context of sustainable economic growth, climate friendly economy and the controlled financial markets
- investment to R&D for a competitive economy
- combatting corruption and fight against informal economy
- ensuring budgetary discipline through the establishment of a parliamentary commission to be chaired by the opposition leader, in order to make an ex-post control of state expenditures
- strengthening labor market by fully introducing labor rights, as enshrined in ILO Convention
- ensuring a fair distribution of the national income generated
- taxation policy based on fair taxation principles
2. Strengthening democracy and guaranteeing the rule of law
- The CHP is a democratic party, aiming at social progress
- reduction of general election threshold to %5 from %10
- reforming of the judiciary system, the abolishment of the specially authorized courts serving in fact to the civil dictatorship under the AKP rule
- protecting the privacy of the citizens in their communication and data and the independence of the media
- lifting parliamentary immunities
- strenghtening inner-party democracy
- adopting political ethics code
- formulating “a inclusive and humanistic citizenship policy” promoting equal opportunities for all, irrespective of religion or belief,ethnic origins, gender, sexuality, disability or age
- introducing a viable solution for Kurdish problem by eliminating feudalism in the southeast region determined by the religious sects and political groups, boosting investments in the region and recognizing of cultural rights.
- building a solid civil society dialogue
- pursuing policies for youth and women promoting employment and equality
3. The EU-Turkey Relations under a possible CHP Rule: a continuity in or shift from policies?
The CHP supports Turkey’s membership to the Union from the very start. In the 2008 Party Programme of the CHP, it is stated that the CHP:
- regards Turkey’s membership to the EU as a project of social transformation, naturally rooted in the vision for modernization of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, founder of the Republic of Turkey.
- is in favor of the full membership within the framework of the fundamental values of the Turkish Republic, which are democracy, respect for human rights, secularism, the rule of law and social welfare for all the citizens.
- strongly opposes to the efforts to grant Turkey with a special status other than full membership.
- commits fully to the alignment with EU acquis including Maastricht and Copenhagen criteria, and asks that Turkey is treated equally as all other candidate states.
- calls on the EU to lift unilateral restrictions on free movement of people, agricultural subsidies and regional development, as laid down in the Negotiation Framework, and to ensure that the free trade agreements concluded between the EU and the third countries concurrently become parallel agreements between Turkey and the third countries concerned.
- supports accelerating reform process, while calling on the EU to provide Turkey with an exact date for membership.
