By İHSAN YILMAZ,
Former EU Minister Egemen Bağış was a euroskeptic. His only mission was to go to the EU countries and send a message to nationalist Justice and Development Party (AKP) voters who did not like the EU. He did not care about developing Turkey’s ties with the EU or making an effort to make Turkey more democratic. He was simply hated in the European capitals, and this was a well-known secret.
Since support for Turkey’s accession to the EU was very low among AKP voters, then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan purposefully kept Mr. Bağış in this job. Former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu was not an EU enthusiast either. He was more concerned with the Muslim Brotherhood (MB), the Middle East, etc.
During election campaigns, the AKP’s anti-Western rhetoric was very helpful as far as votes were concerned, and surveys show that AKP voters believed Erdoğan’s theory of a conspiracy by dark international forces to attempt a coup against him. His voters knew that he was referring to the US, the EU and Israel. In this fantastical story, the internal collaborator of this dark conspiracy was the Hizmet movement. Despite all this, new Prime Minister Davutoğlu appointed two pro-EU figures as EU minister, Mr. Volkan Bozkır, and foreign minister, Mevlüt Cavuşoğlu.
They are the antitheses of Bağış and Davutoğlu as far as Turkey-EU relations are concerned. What is more, they are liked in the EU capitals. Does this show an essential change of approach in the AKP’s almost anti-EU policies? Given the fact that the AKP is becoming more authoritarian and corrupt with every passing day, does the AKP need a supranational power that will keep nagging about the rule of law, transparency, accountability, press freedoms, etc., which are all now anathema to the AKP’s practices? Of course not. So, the question is this: Why does the AKP, meaning Erdoğan and Davutoğlu, need Bozkır and Cavuşoğlu?
My answer essentially is this: It is the economy, stupid! The main reason for their appointments is no different from the reason that forced Erdoğan to reappoint Mr. Ali Babacan despite the fact that he hates him, and he has allowed his chief advisor, Bağış, to call Mr. Babacan a member of the “parallel state,” i.e. the chief villain, the Hizmet movement. This accusation was published in Erdoğan’s newspapers, and Erdoğan has so far not reacted to it. What is more, he has promoted Mr. Yiğit Bulut to chief advisor of the Presidency. Erdoğan had to keep Mr. Babacan in his jib until the 2015 elections, as the economy is very fragile, and as Babacan has stated, Turkey will have to borrow $200 billion per year in an increasingly competitive market.
Unlike the golden years of the AKP, now money is not available in the international market, and the US is increasing interest rates, meaning that it will be more difficult to find money. That is why Turkey has to pay a lot of more interest to find money. This will negatively impact its credit ratings, and this will in turn force Turkey to increase interest rates more. Foreign direct investment is going down, Turkey’s exports to the Middle East are shrinking, and it will be more difficult to keep AKP voters happy, who overwhelmingly vote for economic, not ideological, reasons. If the AKP cannot get about 50 percent of the vote in June of 2015, it will not be able to control 330 seats in Parliament, and it will not be able to change the system into a Putinistic presidential one without checks and balances. What is more, if the AKP gets less than 42 percent, it will probably lose power.
All in all, the AKP is now doing what it did from 2002-2011: using the EU accession process as a tactical move without really believing in it, without with a serious intention of respecting EU values, the Copenhagen criteria, pluralism, the rule of law, transparency, accountability, etc. A revived EU accession process would send good signs to markets, and Turkey would stay away from an economic crisis. And yet, they will not democratize Turkey in real terms. The AKP needs this until May of 2015. In the last month before the general elections, they will go back to their anti-Western rhetoric, conspiracy theories, etc., to please their voters.