In the space of a few days, two institutions at the heart of Europe’s security debate sent Türkiye very different messages.

The first came from Hamburg, where European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen warned that Europe must complete the continent so it is not influenced by "Russia, Türkiye or China.”

The phrasing was striking not only because Ankara objected, but because of the company Türkiye was placed in. Russia is a military adversary waging war against Ukraine. China is a systemic competitor with deep economic reach. Türkiye, by contrast, is a NATO ally, an EU candidate country, a major trade partner and a central actor in the Black Sea, the Eastern Mediterranean and Europe’s defense debates.

Then came the second message.

Right after, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte was in Ankara. Meeting with Turkish leaders, Rutte visited the Aselsan Technology Base and highlighted Türkiye’s growing role in the Alliance’s defence-industrial future. If Hamburg showed the discomfort of Institutional Europe, Ankara showed the logic of Functional Europe. One saw Türkiye as an influence to be managed. The other saw Türkiye as a capability to be integrated.

That contrast is the real story. Brussels still speaks about Türkiye through the frozen language of accession, alignment and conditionality. NATO and a growing number of European capitals increasingly deal with Ankara through the more practical language of geography, industry, military capacity and security necessity. The result is a widening gap inside Europe itself over how to deal with an autonomous Türkiye that cannot be easily absorbed, ignored or kept at arm’s length.

Membership trap

There are real disagreements between Brussels and Ankara, and no serious analysis can ignore them. But reducing Türkiye to those disagreements misses the larger strategic picture. The reaction to von der Leyen’s remarks exposed a deeper uncertainty in Europe’s own thinking: is Türkiye a candidate, a partner, a problem or a power Europe must learn to work with?

Unlike rival powers Russia and China, Türkiye is a NATO member, a formal EU candidate, a Black Sea actor, a defense-industrial producer, a migration partner, an energy corridor and one of Europe’s most consequential neighbours.

Europe is right to think seriously about influence. But influence is not the same thing in Moscow, Beijing and Ankara. Treating it as if it were weakens the very strategy it is meant to protect.

The issue is not Türkiye versus the EU. It is Institutional Europe versus Functional Europe.

Institutional Europe still sees Türkiye mainly through the accession file. That file is real, but it is also stuck. Türkiye was granted EU candidate status in 1999, accession talks began in 2005, and the Council of the EU says negotiations have been at a standstill since June 2018.

The EU and Türkiye continue to cooperate in areas of joint interest, but the membership track no longer carries the political momentum it once promised. It also tends to understate how much the EU’s Türkiye policy is shaped by the unresolved disputes involving Greece and the Greek Cypriot administration. What are often presented as purely European positions are sometimes filtered through the security anxieties and veto power of individual member states.

Functional Europe, however, is moving differently. It is less interested in whether Türkiye fits neatly into Brussels’ political vocabulary and more interested in what Türkiye can do. That version of Europe was visible only days after the Hamburg remarks, when NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte visited Ankara on April 21-22, met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and Defense Minister Yaşar Güler and toured the Aselsan Technology Base. NATO’s own readout highlighted Türkiye’s contribution to the Alliance and quoted Rutte saying that Türkiye had gone through a "defense industrial revolution.”

Cooperation from distance

This does not mean NATO is blind to political tensions or that the EU is irrelevant. It means Europe’s security debate is being pulled in two directions. One direction is still shaped by enlargement fatigue, conditionality and old assumptions about alignment. The other is shaped by the war in Ukraine, pressure on defence production, Black Sea security, uncertainty over long-term U.S. commitments and the practical need for capable partners.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s pressure on NATO allies over the Iran war and the Strait of Hormuz has only sharpened this debate. Reuters reported that several NATO allies refused to join the U.S. plan to blockade Iranian ports, while Anadolu Agency (AA) reported that Trump urged NATO members to "get guts” and send ships to the Strait of Hormuz.

Whatever one thinks of Washington’s policy, the episode underlined a broader reality: Europe’s security environment is increasingly shaped by crises in which U.S. leadership is unpredictable, alliance unity is contested and regional actors matter more, not less.

The U.K.-Türkiye relationship shows where this second track is heading. On April 23, London and Ankara signed a new Strategic Partnership Framework, describing the two countries as NATO allies and strategic partners seeking deeper cooperation on security, defense, trade, energy, technology and regional stability. This followed the Eurofighter Typhoon deal, with Türkiye agreeing in 2025 to buy 20 jets from Britain in an agreement worth $10.8 billion, and a subsequent multi-billion-dollar training and support package linked to that deal.

The significance is not merely commercial. London is not waiting for Brussels to resolve the philosophical question of where Türkiye belongs. It is acting on the operational reality that Türkiye already belongs inside Europe’s security calculations.

Bilateral bypass

The same pattern is visible elsewhere, though it should not be exaggerated. Spain’s Navantia has maintained and expanded its support relationship with the Turkish Navy’s TCG Anadolu, while Italy’s Leonardo and Türkiye’s Baykar have entered into drone cooperation through a joint venture targeting the European unmanned systems market.

These are signs of national capitals finding ways to work with Türkiye where interests overlap, even when the broader EU relationship remains politically frozen. The point is not that these capitals have solved the Türkiye question. It is that they are no longer waiting for the EU accession process to answer it.

That matters because the old binary logic, membership or nothing, no longer explains the relationship. Türkiye is not abandoning Europe. It is diversifying the ways it deals with Europe. And Europe, whether it admits it or not, is doing the same with Türkiye.

Economically, the EU remains indispensable. The EU-Türkiye Customs Union helped push bilateral goods trade to a record of more than $246 billion in 2024. Türkiye was the EU’s fifth-largest goods trade partner that year, while 41% of Türkiye’s goods exports went to the EU. No serious Turkish strategy can treat that relationship as disposable. Customs union modernization, market access, investment, standards and visa issues still matter deeply.

But economically indispensable does not mean politically sufficient. The EU track gives Türkiye access, scale and institutional depth. Bilateral and minilateral deals give it speed, flexibility and leverage. The emerging Turkish approach is to keep the EU relationship alive where it works, deepen NATO relevance where it matters, and build direct partnerships with European states where Brussels cannot move.

New language for Türkiye

For Ankara, the challenge is to convert strategic relevance into durable influence. Defense capacity, geography and NATO membership give Türkiye leverage, but long-term partnerships depend on predictability, trust and continuity. The more Türkiye can present its European engagement as stable, mutually beneficial and institutionally reliable, the harder it becomes for European capitals to treat Ankara as a peripheral actor.

Still, Brussels faces the more immediate strategic question. Can the EU build a security order with a powerful, autonomous Türkiye that it cannot absorb, but also cannot ignore? Can it disagree with Ankara without misclassifying it? And can it think strategically about a country that sits inside NATO, outside the EU, and at the centre of several of Europe’s most urgent security files?

Von der Leyen’s remarks were damaging because they touched this unresolved nerve precisely. Europe talks increasingly about strategic autonomy, but that ambition becomes harder to sustain if one of NATO’s most capable and geographically important members is treated mainly as a problem to be managed from a distance. Nor can it be built by pretending that the accession process still carries the full weight of the relationship.

The question is no longer whether Türkiye belongs in Europe’s security debate. Geography, trade, NATO and war have already answered that. The real question is whether Brussels can develop a political language equal to that reality.

If the EU continues to see Türkiye as a stalled accession file when convenient, a buffer when necessary and an external influence when uncomfortable, it may isolate itself from one of the most important security conversations on the continent.