Angela Merkel

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Sabina Frizell is a research associate in the Civil Society, Markets, and Democracy Program at the Council on Foreign Relations. This week alone, Turkey jailed two journalists on trumped-up terrorism charges, threatened to sue a professor for insulting President Erdogan, and pushed forward the same construction project that sparked massive anti-government protests in 2013. As Turkey’s democracy deteriorates, German-Turkish relations have gone from tense to outright hostile. Chancellor Angela Merkel is vacillating on whether to hold firm to core European Union (EU) values of democracy and human rights or appease Turkey. She can either continue to waver, tacitly accepting Erdogan’s behavior, or send Turkey a strong signal that its human and civil rights violations are unacceptable. Germany and Turkey are bound by over fifty years of migration. Starting in the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Turks began immigrating to Germany under its supposedly temporary Gastarbeiter (guest worker) program—but many stayed beyond the intended one-to-two years, bringing their families and settling for good. Today Germany has over three million citizens and residents of Turkish descent, making Turks the country’s largest immigrant group. Amid the ongoing refugee crisis, migration again ties the two countries together. Germany and Turkey were the primary negotiators of the EU-Turkey migrant deal, which set up a one-for-one trade of asylum seekers for Syrian refugees. The EU also pledged €6 billion for Turkey to help settle migrants, and raised the possibility of visa-free travel for Turks. Though widely declared a human rights catastrophe (and rightly so), the deal is critical to Merkel’s already-waning popularity at home—and its success in stemming the flow of migrants hinges on Turkey’s cooperation. As a result, Merkel’s government developed some degree of dependency on Turkey, despite Erdogan’s many affronts to democracy and ever-tightening grip on power. In this context, Germany has at times compromised its own values rather than strain its relationship with Turkey, as in the case of the charges against German comedian Jan Böhmermann. After Böhmermann read a crude poem insulting Erdogan on television, the Turkish government filed a criminal complaint demanding that Germany charge him for violating an archaic German law from the 19th century that prohibits slander of foreign heads of state. Though the law leaves some room for interpretation—it applies to slander, but not satire, riding a fine and subjective line—Merkel approved a criminal prosecution against Böhmermann, and even apologized for the poem. With Turkey extending limitations on free speech beyond its borders, many Germans were outraged, saying Merkel was kowtowing to Erdogan for fear that he might back out of the migrant deal. But the Bundestag has also proved ready to challenge Turkey. This month, the parliament voted almost unanimously to officially recognize the Ottomans’ slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians during World War I as genocide. Germany follows over twenty countries that have passed similar resolutions, but its voice is especially significant given both its own history, and its complicity with the Armenian genocide as a then ally of the Ottoman Empire (which the resolution acknowledges, calling Germany “partially responsible.”) The Turkish government, which vehemently denies the killings constitute genocide contrary to almost all historical assessments, called Germany’s vote a “test of friendship” and within hours recalled their ambassador to Turkey—warning the move was just a first step. Judging by Turkey’s short memory of other countries’ rulings on the genocide, the threats will likely die down. But the episode nevertheless rattled the countries’ fragile bond. Germany is attempting a precarious balance with Erdogan, and should adopt a more coherent stance—one that recognizes his government’s transgressions consistently, not selectively. To start it should make aid, not just visa-free travel, contingent on Turkish respect for human rights, especially those of the migrants. With a wave of far right parties gaining momentum across Europe and the refugee deal falling apart, Merkel’s center right Christian Democratic Union party may be in jeopardy. Recent polls show support for the bloc is at an all-time low, while distrust of Turkey is rising. Merkel’s ability to manage relations with Ankara will be one crucial piece of maintaining public support.

Last week brought some seemingly good news for Turkey’s long moribund effort to join the European Union. At a joint press conference in Berlin with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that "The EU is an honest negotiating partner" and that Brussels would pursue Turkey’s membership in "good faith." In a way, there was reason for Turks to celebrate Merkel’s forward leaning statements.  Both she and former French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, have been the most vocal and public proponents of what they call a "privileged partnership" for Turkey in lieu of full EU membership, which is a nice way of saying the status quo.  Merkel’s willingness to energize the accession process is no doubt more apparent than real, however.  European opposition to Turkey’s membership in one of the world’s most exclusive clubs is pretty wide and deep even among European leaders who give lip service to the notion. It goes without saying that Turkey isn’t ready for EU membership.  Ankara still needs to address a host of political problems including human rights issues, freedom of the press, the quality of the judicial system, and the generalized backsliding on the ambitious democratic reforms the Justice and Development Party began in 2003.  There is also, of course, the state of relations between the Republic of Cyprus--an EU member--and Turkey, which has tens of thousands of troops on the island protecting the  orphaned and illegitimate Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.  Resolving these issues will be daunting and require political leadership, but one can imagine ways in which they can be solved. No, the problems with Turkey’s EU membership are not technical-political-foreign policy related, but rather are directly related to the Europeans’ fundamental inability to agree on what "Europe" is and what it means to be "European." If the EU is geographic, co-terminus with predominantly Christian countries, Turkey’s bid for membership continues only because Brussels doesn’t want to be tagged as anti-Muslim and the Turks don’t want to let the Europeans off the hook for promises that were made to the Turks about integration with Europe dating as far back as the 1964 Ankara Agreement.  If, however, Europe is based on a set of common ideas, norms, and principles about rule of law, transparency, tolerance, and consensual politics then Turkey could clearly be an EU member one day. My sense is that when a lot of Europeans pull their covers up at night, they regard the European Union in geographic terms and recoil at the idea that Europe could one day border Iraq, Syria, and Iran.  Moreover, imagine your average Frenchman or German who think of themselves and their countries as the most important members of the largest economic bloc in the world. It must be jarring that one day they may wake up to find that 75 million Turks have joined the Union and now have the largest representation in the European parliament, the biggest military, and most dynamic economy in Europe. That thought can’t sit well and Turkey’s membership is clearly political freight European chauvinism is not likely to bear any time soon. Chancellor Merkel and Prime Minister Erdogan have clearly decided to let Turkey’s minister for EU Affairs, Egemen Bagis, continue burning jet fuel in his quixotic mission rather than let some of these well-known, but rarely spoken ugly truths out in the open.