How to deal with Erdogan?

The situation in the Eastern Mediterranean is becoming very tense. Turkey is doing oil mapping at sea, in waters that are contested by a fellow NATO Member State – Greece. The oil vessel is escorted by several Turkish warships. And now France has responded to a Greek appeal and is sending navy assets to the region. This situation can easily escalate and become an open conflict. It must be dealt with by the NATO and European authorities immediately.

The truth of the matter is that Europe does not have a clear line of approach towards Turkey. Delaying the accession negotiations or approving a light package of sanctions against the regime in Ankara is not an effective policy line. A firmer position is required. The European leaders must understand that President Erdogan is a major threat to the stability of Europe. In addition, they must realise that someone of his calibre does not understand a soft approach. He knows about force and can get the message if the message is forceful.

The EU must be more creative in matters of crisis response

Josep Borrel, the EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, addressed the UN Security Council yesterday. It was a long speech about several crisis situations. But the true message was about multilateralism. He stated the strong support the EU is providing to the UN and repeated the message that global problems do call for multilateral action. That was positive. But he was speaking to a very divided and weak Security Council. His words were certainly the right ones, but I can safely guess that their impact was negligible. The climate in the Council is not favourable to global or multinational responses. In addition, his description of the crisis was not creative. For instance, he spoke about the Sahel but added no new idea to what is already known. His concern was to show that the situation in the region is deteriorating – an important message – and that the EU and the UN are cooperating throughout the Sahel. But there was no indication of a line of action that should be followed to stop the fall.

The EU must be more realist in terms of crisis resolution. It should recognise that the current approaches are not yielding results. And it must come up with alternative paths. That would be a much stronger message and a way of giving strength to the EU’s role in matters of peace and security.