After many years in which it considered Turkey a problem, the European Union now sees it as an essential partner.
As peace negotiations in Ukraine gain momentum, Turkey’s potential role in the post-war order – especially as a peacekeeper and regional intermediary in the Black Sea – makes it an essential partner for the EU, writes Politico.
However, Brussels is taking small steps towards approaching a country that has regressed in terms of democracy and whose Islamist leader, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, has imprisoned high-ranking political opponents.
In an attempt to thaw relations, EU Commissioner for Enlargement Marta Kos visited Turkey on Friday. Before her trip, Kos told Politico: "Peace in Ukraine will change the realities in Europe, especially in the Black Sea region. Turkey will be a very important partner for us. Preparing for peace and stability in Europe involves preparing for a strong partnership with Turkey," she added.
Turkey is a strong military force. It has the second largest military in NATO and holds a crucial strategic position in the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Ankara's control over the Bosporus gives it immense influence over regional security and played a key role in negotiating the Black Sea agreement in July 2022, which ensured the safe passage of ships carrying Ukrainian grain.
The country with 88 million inhabitants has also stated that it is willing to send peacekeeping troops to Ukraine if an agreement is reached with Russia and will assume a leadership role in Black Sea security.
Deteriorated Relations
However, relations between the EU and Turkey have deteriorated over the years and have not been helped at all by Erdoğan's shift towards autocracy and his crackdown on opposition mayors. Although officially a candidate for EU membership, negotiations have been frozen since 2018.
To take the first steps towards rapprochement, Kos attended a ceremony in Ankara where the European Investment Bank and Turkey signed €200 million in loans for renewable energy projects. The EIB suspended new loans to Turkey in 2019 due to a dispute over oil and gas drilling off the coast of Cyprus.
Also on Friday, the Commission presented a study on "promoting an interregional connectivity agenda" with Turkey, Central Europe, and the South Caucasus. The study, consulted by Politico, outlines the need for investments to strengthen transport, trade, energy, and digital connections along the Trans-Caspian Corridor, linking China, Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and the Black Sea.
These are symbolic first steps towards bringing Ankara back into the EU, but they are not what Turkey truly wants from the EU - an updated customs union agreement. The old agreement was signed in 1995.
The new trade agreements signed by Brussels with India and the Mercosur group of South American countries put Turkey at a competitive disadvantage. Once these come into effect, Ankara will be required to grant duty-free access to goods from these countries, but this benefit will not be reciprocated.
Even Ekrem İmamoğlu, the democratically elected mayor of Istanbul, whose arrest in March last year sparked massive nationwide protests and international condemnation, has advocated for modernizing the customs union agreement.
In a message from his cell to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, European Council President António Costa, and Parliament President Roberta Metsola, İmamoğlu called on the EU to modernize the customs union agreement with Turkey.
"The Customs Union remains the only normative and rule-based framework that underpins Turkey-EU relations. Following the EU's free trade agreements with Mercosur and India, the asymmetrical consequences for Turkey have become increasingly visible," İmamoğlu said in a social media post on Thursday.
Issues with Greece and Cyprus
Updating Turkey's agreement would require approval from the European Council. However, Greece and Cyprus strongly oppose warming relations without a goodwill gesture first from Ankara.
Cyprus wants Ankara to allow its ships to enter Turkish ports, according to a EU official. Ankara does not recognize Cyprus due to the island's division in 1974 following a Turkish military invasion.
"The strength of any future partnership must be supported by good political relations with our member states and, in particular, by good neighborly relations and relations with Cyprus," Kos stated.
Cyprus' Deputy Minister for European Affairs Marilena Raouna told Politico that the country's presidency of the EU Council "can be an opportunity" for EU-Turkey relations.
She said that Cyprus "has engaged constructively. And we expect Turkey to engage constructively as well."
So far, Ankara has shown little willingness to extend an olive branch. Last year, it rejected the proposal of Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides for Turkey to open its ports to Cypriot-flagged ships in exchange for easier access to European visas for Turkish businesspeople.
However, reshaping geopolitical and trade relations by U.S. President Donald Trump could push Europe and Turkey closer to each other.
"The world is changing, and history is accelerating. Turkey-EU relations also need to adapt," said Turkey's ambassador to the EU, Yaprak Balkan, to Politico.
"The way these relations can become stronger is by building on mutual interests. We hope we can build on this philosophy in a very concrete way. Turkey's strategic objective continues to be accession to the European Union, and this should be the guiding light in our relations," he added.