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“When [Recep Tayyip Erdoğan] began to demand Bashar al-Assad's resignation in November 2011, he based it on the fact that the Syrian president represented an oppressive regime.
Four years later, he has himself become a leader that is trying to seize all power for himself. This is perhaps historical irony, but it is a development that should have been more concretely and clearly recognized by the world at large, particularly the European Union.”
Above are the concluding lines of an article titled “Turkiet i Erdoğan's Grepp” (Turkey in Erdoğan's grip), which was published in the January issue of the monthly journal of the Swedish Foreign Policy Institute. The piece, which provides an excellent analysis of Turkey's adventures under Justice and Development Party (AK Party) rule, was written by Elisabeth Özdalga, a professor of sociology at Bilkent University in Ankara, renowned for her studies of religion and politics in Turkey and the Middle East.
One of the points Özdalga raises in her conclusion is the reaction inside and outside Turkey to the deal concerning the control of the refugee influx into the EU from Turkey, a country which has increasingly drifted away from the EU in terms of democratic values. In this context, she draws attention to the fact that many liberals and democrats in Turkey viewed German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit to Ankara just two weeks prior to the November parliamentary election in Turkey and the postponement of the European Commission's annual Progress Report on Turkey until after the election as indirect support of the increasingly arbitrary and authoritarian rule of President Erdoğan, and thus the EU's betrayal of democracy in Turkey.
It is true that the EU has remained almost indifferent to the tragedy unfolding in Syria for too long and is, in a way, paying the price with the huge numbers of refugee flows it has been exposed to since last year. The refugee crisis is taking place at a time when the EU has not yet fully overcome its economic problems and when it faces the growth of anti-immigrant and racist movements in most member states, along with the election of authoritarian governments, at least in Poland and Hungary. The EU is in such bad shape that the Greek financial crisis has no longer been a topic in the last few months. It is thus quite understandable that Brussels feels the need to cooperate with Ankara over the control of the movement of refugees. Brussels should not, of course, fail to criticize the growing authoritarianism of the Turkish government. However, it is of benefit to Turkey if, even belatedly, the EU takes the initiative in trying to share Turkey's financial burden of having to host over 2 million refugees, introduces visa exemption for Turkish citizens traveling to Europe and revitalizes long-stalled accession talks.
Governments come and go. Erdoğan's arbitrary and authoritarian rule is not likely to last forever. In the long run, Turkey's interests are more important than the nature of the government in power. If the EU is to share the refugee burden with Turkey and, more importantly, grasp the value of Turkey's partnership, the recent deal between Brussels and Ankara is surely a step in the right direction. If Turkey is to overcome authoritarianism and restore the rule of law, it needs to move closer to the EU rather than further away. Strengthening the EU by overcoming the refugee crisis and fortifying its liberal and democratic credentials against the racist and authoritarian trends it faces is surely in Turkey's interest, too.
Finally, the fact that Turkey is confronted with the danger of, what one may call, Syrianization, in terms of both one-man rule and domestic turmoil, is not due to Brussels' choices but Ankara's. Besides other policy failures, Ankara has contributed to the growing tragedy in Syria. The fact that the country is currently surrounded by neighbors that are mostly hostile to it should remind even Erdoğan, who once flirted with the idea of joining the “Shanghai Five,” of the value of the EU anchor.