GLOBAL PERSPECTIVES

Put-Downs Abound, but Turkey and the EU Can't Quit Each Other

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Sinan Ciddi
Board of Contributors

Mar 20, 2019 | 21:28 GMT

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a news conference in Ankara on Feb. 5, 2019.

Membership in the European Union is longer a strategic objective for Turkey. Instead, the dormant accession process has become just another political tool that President Recep Tayyip Erdogan uses to criticize Europe and fire up his supporters.

(ADEM ALTAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Highlights

  • The European Parliament recently passed a nonbinding resolution calling on the European Union to suspend long-dormant membership talks with Turkey, underscoring the uneasy relationship between the two sides.
  • Turkey has a justified list of grievances against the EU membership process, but in the years since talks stalled, EU accession has become a politically expedient way for President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to denounce the bloc and mobilize voters.
  • Turkey will be election-free until 2023 after municipal elections are held March 31; if Erdogan and his ruling party come out on top, practical necessities will likely motivate each side to attempt a rapprochement of sorts.

The European Parliament, citing Turkey's deteriorating human rights record, passed a nonbinding resolution on March 13 calling on the European Union to suspend its membership negotiations with Ankara. The symbolic vote will not result in the European Commission formally suspending or even ending Turkey's accession process. However, it is a clear signal that Turkey and the European Union are at a stalemate. Ankara's flagrant disregard for democratic institutions, compounded by the purposeful denigration of the rule of law, will serve only to reinforce European prejudices against Turkish accession to the European Union -- a process that has been dormant since 2007....

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