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Ddefying all the predictions before the first round, the re-election of outgoing President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday 28 May, at the end of a campaign marked by a spectacular surge in the nationalist vote, represents a new challenge for European chancelleries, while that they were waiting, if not hoping, for the victory of the opposition candidate, Kemal Kiliçdaroglu, who was more in favor of a resumption of dialogue with the European Union (EU).
This new electoral victory of the outgoing president and that of his party, the AKP, during the general elections brings to light the dilemma of Europeans vis-à-vis Turkey, between the requirement of denunciation and the need for cooperation. Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, resulting in a migration crisis in Europe unprecedented since the Second World War with the influx of thousands of refugees, the EU has been forced to rethink its relations with the Ankara regime. .
As a candidate country for EU membership, marginalized or even almost ignored, Turkey has established itself as an essential interlocutor for the EU in order to manage the migration crisis and fight against international terrorism. Forced to discuss with a partner whose human rights abuses and authoritarian abuses they had until then regularly denounced, the Europeans found themselves faced with their own contradictions: whether to abandon the Copenhagen criteria (including respect for human rights and minorities) and sacrifice them on the altar of the migration crisis?
Aggressive foreign policy
These questions have been reinforced in Europe following several major events in Turkey: the abortive military coup of July 2016, leading to strong political repression, with the establishment of the state of emergency; the presidentialization of the Turkish regime, after the reform of the Constitution approved by referendum in April 2017, leading to a concentration of powers in the hands of the president. Turkish foreign policy, considered interventionist, if not aggressive, on several issues (Syria, Eastern Mediterranean, Libya, Caucasus), has sounded the death knell for the continuation of accession negotiations, ” to the point of death “ since 2018, according to the European Council.
In the light of the results of the Turkish presidential and legislative elections, what are the prospects for the EU now? The Europeans’ dilemma today focuses on three fundamental issues (security, migration and energy) for which Turkey will continue to assert itself as an essential partner in the years to come. The issue of European defense in the first place.
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