The refreshed European Parliament will remain unsupportive of Türkiye’s accession to the European Union, according to a professor of international relations.
“The election results show extreme nationalism and the far-right now have a stronger command in Europe,” professor Talha Köse said Monday at a “Türkiye-EU Relations in a Changing World Panel” hosted by the Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research (SETA) in the capital of Ankara.
Far-right parties achieved notable success in Europe's parliamentary elections last week, even though mainstream parties maintained a comfortable majority.
The progress made by far-right parties might not come as a surprise, but it demonstrates the potential for Euroskeptic factions to exert greater influence on the direction of the European Union in the future.
Köse believes options for bilateral cooperation remain open in Turkish-EU ties.
“There are certain topics Europe needs, such as becoming more economically competitive, resolving its energy shortage, immigration, security and defense. Türkiye has a lot to contribute to the EU on all of these,” Köse said.
Türkiye applied for EU membership in 1987 and has been a candidate country since 1999.
Türkiye has been a candidate for EU membership for more than two decades, but talks stalled in 2016 over what Ankara says is the bloc’s “insistence on politicizing the issue” and has been essentially frozen since last year.
The division of the island of Cyprus between its Greek and Turkish Cypriot populations, a source of friction between Greece and Türkiye, has also been made an impediment by the EU.
Pointing out to the likes of French far-right National Rally party leader Marine Le Pen and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Köse said “producing a political leader is one of Europe’s biggest problems right now.”
Another panelist argued that the economic crisis, energy crisis and migration have pushed the European electorate to the far-right instead of the center-right ruling parties.
“I see the EU's future verging from a normative Europe to a Europe of powers and interests as the impact of World War II fades from memory,” professor Ünal Eriş of Istanbul 29 Mayıs University said.
Eriş too expects as a result of EP elections, the membership perspective in Türkiye-EU relations will decrease significantly, and instead, a functional relationship will gain prominence.
According to professor Aylin Ünver Noi of Haliç University, the compatibility of joint foreign policy and security policies of Türkiye and the bloc is in a downward trend.
“Excluding Türkiye from both security strategy documents and membership is sure to move the EU away from its goal of becoming a geopolitical power,” Noi said.
She pointed to the rise of political parties opposed to Turkish accession in the continent.
“We see in the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) and European People's Party Group (EPP) that the EU is a Christian union with its own culture and values and Türkiye does not align with that,” Noi said.
