Then again, he tends to say and do a lot of odd things, so I guess the simple answer is to not assume any kind of competence or rational thinking from political leaders.
On the other hand, nobody really cares about Europe here nowadays, as in more than half a century all they've done is exploit and humiliate us. I, as a secular irreligious turkish citizen, don't want my government to allow that sort of thing no matter what, whichever party should the ruling one be.
I don't know if that's a good thing, but you shouldn't be happy with what Erdogan is doing...
Wasn't the last line in a speech of Erdogan: Come visit Turkey. It means that he's scared for losing the benefit of being our friend.
Now, I hope you like tourism being partially replaced with 'friendly' Russians :)
+ Exploiting Turkey? Got real proof? I know for sure Turkey had good economic growth because of the EU, not despite of the EU. Then again, we will know for sure in the coming 5 years of I'm right or wrong. Already Turkey is beginning to slip in negative economic growt and that's not our fault. Erdogan is alienating European civilians
As for economic concerns, EU has many trade deals and many EU members would probably be quite happy to have some kind of trade deal without giving Turkey membership, and with how things are today, maybe Turks will just accept that.
Turkey first applied for membership to the EU about 30 years ago: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Un...
https://www.reference.com/geography/turkey-part-europe-ad085...
Ok, this is a completely separate point, which was discussed early on in Turkey's application, but I think the fact that talks have gone on this long indicates that EU officials do consider Turkey to be "close enough" to Europe.
Its a bit ambiguous, geographically speaking. UK, Ireland and even Cyprus were accepted into the EU. Georgia, Iceland, and Greenland are all considered possible candidates to join the EU if they want to. [1] (I'm aware that Greenland is a territory of Denmark but officially Greenland is not part of the EU.)
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EU28-further_enlargement_...
Perhaps that's better explained.
Ps. Where are you from?
I'm American and I live in the US. My parents are Turkish, and also US citizens. We do not like how things are going in Turkey and I agree that now there is no way Turkey will join the EU.
What about you?
At it's core, the principles of the EU are great. But members were cheating, we have to much debt to be allowed in the EU when you look at the 'requirements' , but perhaps that's another discussion
I was trying to say that Turks have, more or less, given up on joining the EU. Not because they don't want to, but because they feel like it has become hopeless. I agree that the past several years have done nothing to help the situation.
Remember, Turkey joining is supposed to be mutually beneficial, so if EU sees some benefit to Turkey joining, then probably there needs to be a concrete timeline (so that Turks see light at the end of the tunnel) and, obviously, Turkey will have to meet the requirements. For many years, Turkey was a free democratic country (though not perfect!) but still they did not join the EU.
edit: Turkey first applied for membership to the EU about 30 years ago. That is a long time; longer than any other applicant to the EU: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Un...
I think it's fair to say that the negotation is finally over and even a trade agreement shouldn't be in the making. You can't build trust with distrust. You can't start a trade agreement with threats.
The main ways to sanction governments of EU member states, such as temporary suspending of voting rights in EU decision making, and EU funding, require unanimous approval of all other EU member states, and as soon as you have 2 member states who are afraid of such sanctions they will put in their veto in favor of each other, as has happened repeatedly with Poland and Hungary in recent years.
The other interesting strategy is the EU is indecisive about if the purpose of the EU should be to help the EU people or if its merely a cloak to hide German rule. Often an issue will be polarized along that axis. Naturally some commentary will align with "the purpose of the EU is non-military takeover of Europe by Germany" and some commentary will align with "serving all European people" and this is going to look really odd. The only way to avoid that is to self censor certain topics, unless of course your actual purpose is to stir stuff up to distract NATO/EU from bombing.
Turkey has been part of NATO for sixty five years. That's not why.
How did the EU do that?
“Since 1999, civilian control of the military has been strengthened. The constitutional and legal framework has been amended to clarify the position of the armed forces versus the civilian authorities,” the European Union said in its 2004 Progress Report on Turkey, which cited various developments with regard to civil-military ties. “A number of changes have been introduced over the last year to strengthen civilian control of the military with a view to aligning it with practice in EU member states.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil%E2%80%93military_relatio...
It is kind of funny that EU being so afraid of the military occasionally taking control of the civil government, EU paved way for the much more sinister threat of a transition to dictatorship. Very shortsighted.
Europeans like to blame America for meddling with foreign countries without any understanding of the consequences, but here EU did exactly the same.
Head of state is the kind of job that draws narcissists, and when they feel slighted, bad things happen. Checks and balances are important, yo.