President of the European Parliament Martin Schulz said that the process of liberalization of the visa regime with Turkey is suspended because of authoritative actions of the president Erdogan.

He spoke at a Europe Calling conference organized by the German fund of Friedrich Ebert on Monday, RIA Novosti reported.

 Schulz noted that the main prerequisite for visa liberalization was the implementation (by Turkey) of a number of criteria that have not been met. Among the outstanding criteria are the law on data protection and the anti-terrorist law. Instead, they used this to remove the immunity of MPs, to invalidate their mandates in order to achieve the two-thirds of the qualified majority for introduction of the presidential system.

Schulz feels forced not to open process of liberalization of a visa regime because he considers that what happens to journalists and to deputies in Turkey contradicts the values of parliamentary democracy.

The European Parliament head also added that according to the different estimates, Turkey hosts from 2.2 to 2.4 million refugees. This means that if EU wants to help refugees, they will have to, whether they like it or not, to work with Turkey. However, Schulz is against paying any price to the government of Ankara.  Therefore, he suspended process of liberalization of a visa regime in the European Parliament.