​Turkey’s spat with EU: How serious is it?

TURKEY - In Brief 14 Mar 2017 by Atilla Yesilada
Living in Turkey is waking up to a new “crisis” each day. This week’s flavor is a big tiff with Netherlands, which started with the expulsion of the Minister for Family Affairs Mrs. Fatma Betul Sayan Kaya from the country because she was trying to hold an impromptu election rally in Rotterdam. Mind you, I’m not trying to adjucate this dispute, because it is all about politics and hardly about political rights, as AKP claims. Predictably Erdogan and his retinue accused the Dutch of fascism and Nazi-like practices. By Tuesday, EU Commission and Mrs. Merkel inveighed on the side of Netherlands, while NATO urged calm to both sides, making sure we now have a global crisis. Foreign Minister Cavusoglu summarily rejected comments from EU Commission and NATO as “biased and ill-informed”, accusing both parties of enabling the Dutch to violate Turkish politicians’ rights. Ankara was fantasizing about the kind of diplomatic tortures it can employ on the poor Dutch as I write these lines, but mind you, no economic sanctions were mentioned, because the Dutch have substantial direct investments in Turkey, with the bi-lateral trade volume reaching $7 billion and roughly 1 million tourists visiting Turkey each year. The “crisis” will not fade away, because AKP and MHP insist on scheduling these election rallies, the banning of which –they believe—stoke nationalist fervor raising the YES votes. On that I have no evidence, since insufficient time has elapsed for agencies to poll the nation. However one AKP deputy claims he has seen one poll where YES votes have jumped 2 percentage points. How serious is this crisis? I’m 80% certain that for AKP and MHP this is merely another ploy to win ...

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