The election campaign is over. For us Greens, it was at times a difficult struggle against forces from the right, against the constant anti-European discourse. Often topics didn't matter, all that counted was a YES or NO to Europe as such, without a chance to point out what kind of Europe we want. In this struggle, I was the European leading candidate for the Greens to become the President of the European Commission and thereby also had to defend the simple fact that in an election the voters' voice matters. In the end, Juncker was nominated by the Council and later on elected by the parliament as the Commission President. We have moved one step further in European democracy, but only one.
During the campaign, the question of the accession of Turkey to the EU was hardly debated. Five years ago, the "Turkey question" was much more in the focus as a defining political issue, as a cleft between conservatives and progressives. Back then, there was a hope and belief among progressives that the accession negotiations would play a vital role in advocating for human rights as well as social and environmental standards in Turkey. Now, things are different.
We should take a moment to consider what this change means for our work with regard to Turkey and Turkey's accession. I think, we, meaning people inside and outside Turkey who care about the political developments in Turkey, need to change the way how we advocate for change. With this article I hope to contribute to this debate.
The Green result: strong light and some shadows
The elections of 25th of May resulted in a slightly diminished green group in the European Parliament. The group has now 50 members (together with the European Free Alliance, a Pirate and a few independent members), as compared to 58 before. The loss comes from France, where we did not manage to repeat the fantastic result from 5 years ago, from Germany, mainly due to a new electoral law, from Finland, Denmark and the Netherlands where we lost one MEP each and from Greece and Portugal where we lost our single MEPs. These losses overshadow the big successes we had elsewhere. In Austria and the UK, we increased the delegations to 3 MEPs instead of previous 2; in Sweden we doubled our MEPs from previous 2 to now 4 and became second biggest party and in Hungary we managed to have green representation. Overall, Greens managed to increase their results in quite a few places, while the south and east of Europe remain challenges for the future.
General result: the rise of the right
While the Greens in general could celebrate, other results give us more of a headache. The rise of the far-right hasn't been as overwhelming as some predicted - in the Netherlands, the right-wing populists actually lost - but nevertheless, it has been massive. With the Front National getting first in France and UKIP being first in the UK and many small far-right parties gaining seats, it is obvious that we cannot continue business as usual. We have to step up our political efforts to counter the far-right. For me as a German it is unbearable to see a German Nazi taking a seat in the European Parliament. And there are more fascist parties in the European Parliament that even make the Front National look like moderates.
The question of why they have been so successful merits an own article but to keep it short I would say that the main reasons are a deep dissatisfaction with politics and it's -partly felt, partly real- disconnection from real life and real problems; the perception that decisions and legislation never benefit the average person and their needs. The far-right parties jump into that niche by offering a protest platform and by pretending to be on the side of the average man (indeed, not woman) against the established political forces. This is even the case for obviously elitist parties like the German AfD. The EU is a good scapegoat because it seems far away and bureaucratic and it is easily blamed, even for bad policies of national governments. The far-right only needed to build on already existing resentments against the EU.
The accession of Turkey to the EU has traditionally been an important topic for right-wing and far-right campaigns. This time, even though it did appear in the context of immigration and prejudices against Islam, it did not play a major role in the campaigns. That does not mean, though, that Turkey will be off the far-right agenda. Quite the opposite, Turkey for them is a symbol of many things they are against, migrants and Muslims. Though Erdoğan´s autocratic style surely impresses some of the far-right leaders, the accession remains a potential for mobilisation for them. This was already clear during the last legislature: debates on Turkey's accession were never about a country joining with possible benefits and flaws, but always about a Muslim country joining and many more (Muslim) immigrants coming. This racist and islamophob approach was unfortunately also taken up by more mainstream centre-right parties who thereby gave legitimacy to the general prejudice against Muslims and those people they think to be Muslims. It is clear that the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee will continue to be one of their favourite platforms for voicing their ideology directly into the cameras.
They will be indirectly supported by governments who are now fearful of the next elections and are taking up far-right issues. In many other European countries conservative parties tried to mobilise anti-Islamic resentments. In a move to catch potential UKIP-voters, David Cameron called the UK a Christian country and many other conservatives try to bind the identity of Europe to so-called "Christian values".
Since not much is happening in the accession negotiations and Erdogan is making himself increasingly unpopular also with long-time supporters of the accession process, Turkey is an easy victim in this game. Nobody loses. While this might even be true for the moment, the long-term effects of a further demonization of Turkey and especially a tiptoeing tolerance of islamophobia might very well be disastrous.
The challenge ahead
In addition to the problem of how to deal with the different shades of right-wing extremism, we will have to think about the issue of how to gain majorities in the future. A progressive majority of Socialists (S&D), Liberals (ALDE), Greens and the radical left (GUE) that was possible, though underused, during the past 5 years, does not exists anymore. A grand coalition, consisting of the conservatives from the EPP, the Socialists and the Liberals, holds the majority now and they will determine the legislation in the new Parliament. It means that there will be serious problems for transparency and political debate and therefor bereft the Parliament of tools it needs for countering the far-right.
Currently some MEPs suggested countering right-wing populists and the far-right with new technical and procedural rules. It was discussed that German MEP's lose their right to offices in the German Parliament so the Nazis would not enter the Parliament, in addition gentlemen agreements have been made to hinder populists from getting prominent positions as vice-chairs of committees. But these are not the means to win the political struggle against them; rather, we need to counter them on political grounds. We need to make clear where we stand and why we stand there. We need to argue more, not less. Unfortunately, deputies, parties and governments are so much afraid of the radical right wing that they are likely to take the opposite path and mimic the right-wingers arguments. This will only give them legitimacy and new support. When mainstream parties turn to the right side in matters such as migration and European solidarity, they give their opponents the perfect opportunity to say "see, we were right".
What does this mean for accession talks?
Thr above discribed dynamics play a role with regard to EU-Turkey relations. Taking the results of the election into account, governments are on their guard, they will move to the right and are more likely to oppose to advances in the accession talks, not daring to stand against what they believe is the public opinion.
The Parliament doesn't have a substantial role in the accession talks with Turkey. But the EP election results matter more than the disturbance they will create in the Joint Committee. This is not the only, and possibly not even the most important threat to Turkey's aspirations, Assuming that their government has any aspiration left for joining the 28 member states of the EU..
PM Erdoğan has not been very outspoken about EU matters lately. He is too busy wiping out any criticism against him in relation to the corruption scandals, the (post-) Gezi protests and too busy with opening and announcing new mega-projects. The biggest incentive for accession currently is the talks by the Commission with the US over a free trade agreement which would leave Turkey as member of the Customs Union affected but without any benefit. The businesses in Turkey are concerned, but that does not seem to affect higher levels of government yet.
On the other side, even accession-supporters in the European Parliament have called for a freeze of negotiations as a response to Erdoğan´s style of politics. Still, this would only have an impact if there was anything substantial to freeze. Currently, this would only give a de-facto situation an official status. Once again, the flaws of the whole accession process come to light. If negotiations are started, it must be ensured that they are conducted in a serious manner. And the most important issues should come first, starting with fundamental rights and justice. Those chapters need to be opened first, not last. If the EU would have opened these chapters, there would be a serious platform for debating the lawsuits against Kurds and Gezi protesters. There would be a reason to express concern about judicial reforms that limit independence. And there would be more to say about the sacking of police officers and prosecutors engaged in anti-corruption activities. Unfortunately, while EU governments like to talk about business, they are not very vocal when it comes to Human Rights. Cyprus is still blocking those most vital chapters, even though they have nothing to do with recognition issues.
What needs to be done?
Greens need to continue to engage with Turkish activists and groups that are struggling for a more open Turkey that respects the rights of everyone. And there is much to be done. But so far, the accession talks have always been our main leverage. This is getting more difficult with the current situation in Turkey and the pressure from the far-right in the EU. We need to find new ways to argue for engagement.
Enlargement criteria were always a good and resonating argument. But let's face it: the criteria have been fairly vague when it comes to human rights and it has never been unproblematic to only point towards outside requirements and conditions. Focusing on inside conditions offers new chances of emancipation and focussing on real needs, rather than checking out what the EU rule book says. Citing enlargement criteria as an argument for change won't be of much avail at the moment anyways. But that does not mean that ties between EU-activists and Turkish groups should be cut. It simply requires a different argumentation, focussing perhaps more on Turkish law provisions and the local constituencies.
Forces that want to support Turkish civil society organisations need to regroup. They need to understand their role as supporters, led by their Turkish peers. During the Gezi protests, people in all over Europe demonstrated in front of Turkish embassies in solidarity, creating pressure on their respective governments to give a strong message to Erdoğan. Even though Erdoğan wasn't very interested in peer pressure from other heads of state, I think this form of support can nevertheless show the way forward. People in Turkey created pressure on the Turkish government on issues of their concern and they were supported by people from the outside. I think this approach has the chance to be more meaningful then focussing on outside pressure before bringing up an issue on the ground.
While the enlargement approach had the clear limit of the talks becoming more and more inconclusive and the aim of accession seemingly further and further away, the suggested new approach also has stumbling blocks. With an extremely polarized society and an undemocratically high threshold for parliamentary elections, it is almost impossible to create a strong political counter-force. Even after Gezi and corruption allegations, the AKP won the communal elections. And Erdoğan has been elected as the new president gaining 52 percent of the votes Clearly, the local movement needs clout, stealth and endurance. But already, they have been causing more attention and more change than all the discussion about enlargement criteria in the meeting rooms of press conferences of the past years. So let's not be discouraged. The strength of the Turkish civil society movement lies in itself. The outside actors need to support it, but the terms need to be defined in Turkey. Only there you know what is helpful. It's time for a shift of balances.