Turkey’s president sounds like he has finally had enough. For years Recep Tayyip Erdogan has honed attacks on “the west”, tossing out accusations of betrayal, terrorist support and other meddling.
On Sunday, Mr Erdogan added a gory twist, bellowing to a crowd of students that it was time to “cut our own umbilical cord” after wasting half a century waiting at the door to EU membership.
The vivid image touched the heart of the matter. Turkey-EU relations are at breaking point. Even the pretence of Turkey’s EU accession bid — what officials saw as a “convenient fiction” to frame relations — is becoming impossible to sustain. Mr Erdogan looks like he is ready to slip one of modern Turkey’s main anchors to the west.
Some European diplomats are looking on in despair; others are braced for the inevitable, hoping Mr Erdogan will ditch the membership bid before they have to suspend the process. But most agree, and are being warned by Ankara, that the rupture is drawing closer. “We’ve reached the beginning of the end,” said one. The big question is how to limit the damage.
It marks a sorry pass for EU soft power. Its warnings over Turkey’s authoritarian turn have been at best ignored and at worst mocked. Brussels vainly spoke out against crackdowns on the media, judiciary and academia; against ditching the peace process with Kurdish separatists; against the arrest of pro-Kurdish political leaders; and urged restraint in Turkey’s post-coup purge that has ensnared more than 100,000. It will solemnly repeat it all again today when publishing a “progress” report on Turkey’s accession bid.
Mr Erdogan, meanwhile, has trampled over almost every EU red line. And in recent weeks he has threatened to take the ultimate step, namely by reintroducing the death penalty, a move that Brussels and Berlin have made clear will trigger the suspension of Turkey’s EU accession process.
“They shouldn’t bother,” Mr Erdogan said on Sunday of the “pressure” on Turkey. “They call me a dictator, they call me this and that. I don’t care. It goes in one ear and comes out the other. What my people say is the important thing.”
Given this, what are Europe’s diplomatic options? Those who see Turkey in transactional terms want to salvage as much co-operation on migration, trade and security as possible. This is crucial whether or not Turkey remains within the democratic fold, or formally on a path to membership.
The model is the Turkey-EU migration deal from March, described by one senior EU diplomat as the bloc’s “first successful attempt at realpolitik”, when Europe struck a bargain with Ankara to curb the million-strong flow of migrants across the Aegean.
The deal looks increasingly shaky; Mr Erdogan is calling in promises on visa-free travel that the EU balks over, worried about public reaction and Turkey’s unwillingness to meet conditions.
Some in Brussels and Berlin think it can be patched up in different form, even if Turkey turns its back on the west. One EU official noted the US and Cuba agreed migration deals, even during the embargo.
Other diplomats in Brussels argue it is time to stop dealing with Ankara as a transaction. They see a bigger strategic challenge: the stability of a 80m strong Muslim state on Europe’s border. The concern is Turkey’s social fabric will not bear all-out fighting with Kurdish minorities, the convulsions of purge after purge, and possible blowback from Syria’s war. “We won’t just be worrying about Syrian refugees but Turks,” said one senior EU official.
Those concerned with preserving Turkey’s stability fear only a tougher approach would ultimately curb Mr Erdogan’s excesses. While ending EU membership talks would hurt Turkey by deterring closer trade ties, Ankara would only feel real pain from the rolling back of existing privileges, such as its customs union and visa-free travel enjoyed by around 2m “special passport” holders, or from travel warnings to potential European tourists.
The economy is Mr Erdogan’s weak spot. But the EU is highly unlikely to take such drastic steps and Mr Erdogan knows it. The EU’s fear of migration and terrorism is greater than its distaste for him. And so while the symbolic rupture with the EU may be nigh, the transactions and haggling will probably go on regardless. Europe has too much at stake.
alex.barker@ft.com
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