Insight
Can the EU-Turkey migration deal survive Erdoğan’s purges?’ by Rem Korteweg 2 August 2016
Erdoğan’s actions threaten to derail the migration deal. The EU should postpone visa liberalisation and show it is willing to be tough. Well before the attempted coup on July 15th, Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was busy consolidating power. In the early 2000’s, as the country’s prime minister, Erdoğan was instrumental in reining in the powerful Turkish military. It won him accolades in the West. But since then he has taken a series of steps that have caused the green shoots of Turkey’s liberal democracy to wither. He set his sights on silencing critical media by removing editors, persecuting journalists and closing newspapers. He cracked down on civil rights protestors in 2013, undermined judicial independence and pushed for lifting the immunity from prosecution of parliamentarians. His illiberal views on freedom of speech even spilled over into Europe when in April 2016 he asked Germany to prosecute a German satirist for publishing a tasteless poem directed at him. Erdoğan had made no secret of his ambition to replace Turkey’s parliamentary and prime ministerial system with a strong executive presidency. Even so, last year’s two parliamentary elections failed to give him the requisite majority to change the constitution. It is not surprising then that Erdoğan described the failed coup as a “gift from god.” He has purged the military, the police, judiciary, the education and the finance ministries; restricted the foreign travel of Turkish academics and civil servants; and declared a three-month state of emergency. In the latest round of purges, diplomats, journalists and businessmen have been targeted and the government has demanded the closure of dozens of media outlets. Erdoğan’s stated objective is to remove all those associated with the movement inspired by US-based Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic cleric he accuses of involvement in the attempted coup. Whether or not Gülen is ultimately responsible, Erdoğan appears to have cast a disproportionately wide net. To justify its recent actions, the Turkish government has drawn parallels with France’s response after the terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015. France declared a state of emergency too. In the days following the coup attempt, however, more than 60.000 people have been detained, arrested or CER INSIGHT: Can the EU-Turkey migration deal survive Erdoğan’s purges? 2 August 2016
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