Europe and Turkey should keep talking

Just as France has softened its longstanding objections to reviving Turkey’s accession talks with the EU, opening the way to a resumption of negotiations after a three-year hiatus, another member state has mounted the barricades.

Last week Germany blocked the reopening of discussions with Ankara about regional policy, one of the 35 chapters of the rulebook prospective joiners must agree to adopt before their application can be considered.

Berlin says its objection, which is not final, is “technical in nature”. But in the absence of a clearer explanation the move has been interpreted as a response to Turkey’s crackdown on demonstrators. Following news a week ago that Istanbul’s German hospital had been attacked by police and a hotel used as a refuge by protesters (and also occupied by German politicians) tear-gassed, Chancellor Angela Merkel declared that the response had been “too harsh”.

Turkey-Germany

All bets are off

The probable refusal of the European Union to open the next chapter of entry negotiations with Turkey could be the "next major failure for Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government," says Austrian daily Der Standard.
"This government is not doing anything right at the moment. It is in rout because it is learning nothing from its mistakes," argues the newspaper, which continues —

The insolence with which Erdoğan and his Foreign Affairs Minister Egemen Bagis [...] are currently undermining the (European) Parliament, the Commission and the governments of the EU is breath-taking.
Over the past week, the Turkish Prime Minister has explained that he would "not bet a penny" on the European Parliament, notes Der Standard, while his minister openly criticised the German Chancellor after she publicly condemned the violent confrontations between demonstrators and police in Istanbul.
This row "is weighing more and more on the German-Turkish relationship," says German daily Die Welt. On June 21, Berlin summoned the Turkish ambassador to Germany to inform him of its "great incomprehension". To which Ankara responded by summoning the German ambassador in Turkey.