Turkey Once Again Showed It is not a Reliable Partner for the EU

• 05.09.2016, 20:12
• Greta Avetisyan
•  Europe,  Region,  "Insight" Analytical Center ,  World,  Analytics

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The EU-Turkey relations may be revised… This is what one thinks when analyzing the recent developments. Fight against the Islamic State militants, migrant crisis and as a result of it the EU-Turkey deal – all these seemed to be uniting factors for Turkey and the EU. In this context it should be mentioned that though these were uniting factors, the interests of the sides were and still remain different. However, Erdogan seems intends to fail the successes recorded in the EU-Turkey relations.

Migrants have become a real burden for the EU, threatening to cause a great crisis and giving even more rise to terrorism and extremism. Thus Turkey was seen as a country that could help to limit the flow of migrants. As for Turkey, the migrant crisis became a real opportunity for moving forward with big steps towards European integration – an issue in the Turkish politics around which since 1952 the authorities "due to their politics" have not been able to record success. Thus migrant crisis became а "good reason" for Turkey to gain from the EU as much as possible, not aiming at all to meet the requirements for the EU accession or carrying out any reforms – just get as much as possible.

At the beginning of the negotiations on EU-Turkey deal, the threatening policy of Turkey towards the EU was working quite well. Turkey put up several demands and the EU "for the sake of getting rid of its headache" gave its agreement. Now the deal is there, but there are no touchable results. Maybe the EU needed several months to understand that they should not have relied on Turkey so much and their deal turned to be of unilateral benefit - only for Turkey.

The main issue of disagreement between the EU and Turkey became visa-free travel deal. On May 4 the European Commission issued a statement putting forward certain conditions for Turkey to get visa-free travel inside Europe's passport-free Schengen area. "The European Commission is today proposing to the European Parliament and Council of the European Union to lift the visa requirements for the citizens of Turkey, under the understanding that the Turkish authorities will fulfill, as a matter of urgency and as they committed to do so on 18 March 2016, the outstanding benchmarks of its Visa Liberalisation Roadmap," the statement of the Commission says. The requirements that Turkey should meet for visa-free travel are fight against corruption, data protection, judicial cooperation with all Member States, enhanced cooperation with EUROPOL and revision of the legislation and practices on terrorism.

This requirements by the EU were followed by two events -  Davutoglu declared that he is living his post and Erdogan said that is not going to make changes to its terrorism laws, adding "we're going our way, you go yours," Reuters writes. 

"Those who ask Turkey to change its laws on terror should first remove the terrorists' tents that were erected outside the EU parliament," Erdogan said, referring to Belgian authorities allowing supporters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) to set up a protest site outside an EU-Turkey summit in March. "They say 'I am going to abolish visas and this is the condition.' I'm sorry, we're going our way, you go yours. Agree with whoever you can agree," he said. It should be reminded that these anti-terrorism laws are considered to be a good tool to silence those critical of the government, whereas Erdogan insists the laws are essential as it battles the PKK and the Islamic State Militants.

Erdogan’s this statement and the fact that Davutoglu, who was an active advocate of deepening the EU-Turkey relations, indicate that a process of cooling of these relations should be expected.

As The Guardian writes, Davutoğlu’s departure raises questions about the visa deal and opens up the prospect that the EU-Turkey refugee pact could fall apart. The EU also understands that Davutoglu’s departure will change a lot.

"Ahmet Davutoğlu was one of the most reliable and constructive interlocutors between the European Union and the Republic of Turkey," the European Parliament President Martin Schulz said, The Guardian writes. In his turn Norbert Röttgen, chairman of the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, said Davutoğlu’s departure was "bad news for Europe … and also for Turkey". 

Once again Turkey showed that it is not a reliable partner and any time that it sees something is not in its interests, it can fail any process, despite of the efforts put on it...