Green Deal can create EU-Turkey cooperation: Official

The Green Deal, a set of policy initiatives by the European Commission to make Europe climate neutral by 2050, can create cooperation between the EU and Turkey to work towards same objectives, according to an official.

Ambassador Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut, head of the EU Delegation to Turkey, said Ankara has taken a major step by ratifying the Paris Agreement.

"It puts Turkey, the EU and the world community on the same path in terms of objectives," he told Anadolu Agency in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of an Ankara conference titled An Advanced Economic Integration "Turkey-EU Customs Union: The Digital Agenda and the Green Deal".

"Turkey is also engaged in decisions and action plans on how to achieve these objectives. This work needs to continue, which also creates space for cooperation between the EU and Turkey," Meyer-Landrut said.

Hailing Turkey's pledge to achieve net zero emissions by 2053, the EU ambassador called it "a very important objective".

"From the European side, the most important objective is an emission trading scheme, which results in putting a price on CO2 -- making CO2 emissions expensive. Because this leads industry and consumers to change towards greener production.

"So, the question for Turkey now is what are the mechanisms it wants to put in place to achieve these objectives," he explained.

Digitalization, Green Deal key subjects

Sinan Ülgen, chairman of Istanbul-based think tank Center for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies (EDAM), and a former Turkish diplomat, said: "For a long time, there has been a discourse of modernizing and updating Customs Union between Turkey and the EU."

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