The OGP will use its diplomatic and political power to re-engage Turkey in the Open Government process, the OGP Steering Committee’s Criteria and Standards subcommittee said at a meeting in Washington on February 23-24 2016.
“The subcommittee agreed to ask the co-chairs, and other Steering Committee members to invest political and diplomatic capacity to make a final outreach to Turkey to reengage in OGP prior to the ministerial-level Steering Committee meeting in South Africa on May 3-4th, 2016”, according to the minutes from the subcommittee’s February meeting published on the OGP website.
A response or become inactive
This will be the last chance for Turkey to respond to OGP, the document stated. Without a timely response, “Criteria and Standards decided that it will then make a recommendation to the full Steering Committee that Turkey be considered inactive”.
Being listed as inactive means that a country has either not met its ODP commitments or has not published its National Action Plan. Turkey’s participation in OGP has been under review since 2015. Turkey failed to advance on the commitments in its first Action Plan in 2014, and did not release its second Action Plan in 2015. OGP sent a warning letter to the Turkish government in 2014.
In May 2015, Turkey said that it wanted to “re-engage in OGP “, but had still not submitted an Action Plan.
According to the OGP’s governance, for a country which repeatedly (for two consecutive action plan cycles) acts contrary to OGP process or its Action Plan commitments, the Steering Committee may, upon the recommendation of the Criteria and Standards (C/S) subcommittee, review the participation of said government in OGP.
The Criteria and Standards subcommittee meeting minutes also said that “there is not currently an assigned lead ministry or official point of contact” in Turkey.