BY OMER LUTFI METE
SABAH- While one problem of Schroeder – who didn’t look very happy during his visit to Turkey – was the fall in fortunes of his party, his other problem was that he has to face a double-sided approach towards Turkey that cannot be concealed. This is because the chancellor is caught between two opposite pressures. The first pressure is because, in addition to the considerable size of economic cooperation today, larger and greater cooperation possibilities are expected to emerge in the future. No European Union country can be compared to Germany in terms of common interests.
The second pressure is caused by Europe’s facts, and Germany’s excuses, which include many reasons to be against Turkey. Due to these two opposite pressures Schroeder has to follow a very subtle policy towards Turkey, and not offend any side. However, with these kind of policies only inexperienced countries can be deceived. Turkey, for various reasons, seems to tolerate this approach. When even then President Turgut Ozal sold Turkey’s right of free movement on the cheap in 1986, what can Erdogan – who is surrounded by many problems – do ?
It is enough to look at an article about Turkey in German daily Tagesspiegel to understand why Schroeder isn’t very sympathetic:
‘The point where Turkey is the farthest from EU values is religious freedom. The Patriarchate which Schroeder wants to visit is the religious center of the 330 million Orthodox Christians worldwide. But this center has fewer rights than Turkish football clubs. If Turkey wants to be a member of the EU, it has to rearrange the relations between religion and the state. However it seems that the Turkish prime minister has to urgently change his mentality. In recent weeks, when nationalist hysteria in Turkey reached a fever pitch, Erdogan had to oppose this with a modern European state vision. However he first kept silent and then he grabbed onto the reins of nationalism’.