The statement from Turkey’s president is startling, according to Turkey expert Paul Levin.
– There is an obvious risk that it complicates Sweden’s NATO process, he says.
Just hours before Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson (M), NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan are to meet in Vilnius, the Turkish leader makes a new move.
In order to support the Swedish NATO application, Turkey demands that the EU resume the frozen negotiations on letting Turkey join the Union.
– It is nothing new that Erdogan comes up with completely new criteria, he has done that throughout this process. But this is quite startling, says Paul Levin, director of the Institute for Turkish Studies at Stockholm University.
Raise the bar?
It is difficult to interpret what Erdogan wants to get out of the play, Levin believes.
– Is it some strange negotiation tactic where he wants to raise the bar? Another interpretation is that he decided to say no to Sweden and is therefore looking for reasons. Maybe it’s just a ploy in the heat of battle.
The European Commission emphasizes in a statement that the two processes of NATO membership and EU membership cannot be linked.
– The two processes that take place in parallel, on NATO enlargement and acceptance of new members on the one hand and the separate process of enlargement of the EU on the other, are completely separate processes, says EU Commission spokesperson Dana Spinant at the Commission’s daily press conference in Brussels.
She emphasizes that the EU has a “very structured process” in terms of enlargement, with clear steps that must be taken by all candidate countries.
May be dissatisfied
It is also unclear what Erdogan means when he talks about “opening the way” for Turkey into the EU. If he demands a membership, it is something that will not happen in the foreseeable future. But if he settles for statements about working for a reboot, there may still be openings.
Perhaps Erdogan wants to signal that an alleged deal between Ankara and Washington on F-16 planes is not enough, according to Levin.
– It could be an attempt to show that he is not happy with it.
On the other hand, Erdogan has stated many harsh demands during the process, such as the extradition of a large number of Kurds and an absolute stop to Koran burnings, for example.
– He says a lot to a domestic audience, which he doesn’t necessarily mean, and he’s also good at making cow-turns if it benefits him.
FACT Turkey and the EU
Turkey already applied for membership in the then EC in 1987 and was accepted as a candidate country in 1999.
Formal membership negotiations began in 2005, a total of 16 out of 33 so-called negotiation chapters (about everything from free movement of goods to education and foreign policy) have been opened.
After the failed coup attempt in 2016, it was stated at an EU summit in December that “under the current circumstances” no new negotiation chapters can be opened for Turkey.
In June 2018, the EU ministers of the EU countries decided that the negotiations are “in practice at a standstill” and that the negotiation chapter can therefore no longer be opened or closed.
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