Interlude in the EU adventure for a temporary period?

But with the Netherlands announcing officially and by way of government decision that it would not give landing permission to the Turkish Foreign Minister’s plane; and the President subsequently shrieking, ‘They are Nazi leftovers, they are fascists’ and adding ‘Let’s see how their planes are going to land after this;’ you don’t need to be a political genius to realise that there has been an interlude in Turkey’s two-hundred-year adventure to establish close relations with Europe and that of fifty-four years’ standing to integrate into Europe.
Things have been hanging by a thread of late, anyway. Not just with the Netherlands. Relations between Turkey and Germany, France, Belgium and Austria were on a knife edge. The cancellation by the Netherlands of flight permission came purely and simply as the straw that broke the camel’s back. Indeed, the announcement by way of justification of, ‘The risk to public order and security posed by the Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu’s visit’ does not merit serious consideration. I mean, were Çavuşoğlu to campaign for ‘Yes’ among people of Turkish origin in Rotterdam or Amsterdam who have a vote in the 16 April referendum, would clashes that pose a risk to public security break out between ‘No’ supporters and ‘Yes’ voters? Give me a break!
 
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A cloud of dust hangs everywhere. As I pen this column, the dust has yet to settle. I have no idea if, by the time Cumhuriyet has been printed and reached your hands, things will have calmed down and there will be a better idea of where things stand. What I do know is that countries that are no less than the leading lights of the European Union have failed miserably in the art of diplomacy and have fanned up the flames rather than broker a solution.
As to the AKP regime and Tayyip Erdoğan. Well, the clumsy political and diplomatic mish mash that the EU has cast in Turkey’s direction has provided Erdoğan, master of the art of being both proud and wronged, with the opportunity to kill several birds with one stone.
He will not miss this opportunity. He is exploiting it with pleasure, and will continue to do so.
First: He is unable to hold rallies that will boost the ‘Yes’ vote among Turkish voters in European countries, but at home the role of ‘proud nationalist leader Erdoğan who is standing up to the EU’ will bring votes.
Second: As far as the AKP regime is concerned, this is a relationship that needs to be supported in the interests of doing plenty of trade with EU countries, buying goods, selling goods and them sending tourists to earn us foreign currency. But, for the AKP regime, adopting and implementing the European Union’s standards of democracy is a condition that needs to be kept in check. Now Erdoğan and his cronies have been dealt a trump card that will enable them to say, ‘Is this what you call democracy? We can do without this kind of democracy,’ and it was clear from the first day that Erdoğan would exploit this trump card to the utmost and with dexterity.
Third: It will be easier to counter the ensuing public reaction as new and firm relations are established with countries like Russia and even Saudi Arabia and Qatar that have had no truck with democracy.
In conclusion: It would appear that the coming period whose length I am incapable of divining will move along the axis of continued trade, but a brake on politics, with the European Union.
In other words: Long live the Maastricht criteria, down with the Copenhagen criteria.