ECR's Anna Sara Malmgren, with Latif Tas: Dictators Aren't Built in a Day
Powerful inter-governmental actors, like the United Nations and the European Union, have the capacity to not just speak out, but to put serious diplomatic pressure on Turkey, and intervene in other ways. The UN is hampered by the veto-rights of US and Russia, but fortunately the EU is not.
The EU Foreign Affairs Council has condemned Turkey’s incursion, and severe financial and other sanctions are being discussed. Some EU countries have suspended all arms sales to Turkey. This is a good start. It’s also crucial that the EU not budge to Erdoğan’s blackmail regarding refugees. This a fallout from the perilous EU-Turkey refugee agreement that was signed in 2016. That agreement cannot be unsigned. And we don’t mean to underestimate the refugee-crisis in Europe—but the EU must respond responsibly now. It likely means a problematic uptick in migration. But that uptick might occur anyway: it’s reasonable to expect that many of the Syrian refugees now held up in Turkey would prefer heading to Europe, over being resettled in a new part of the country they fled. And, however that may be, it’s imperative that the EU—and the rest of the international community—stop yielding to Erdoğan’s expansionist ethno-nationalist ambitions, and unrelenting aggression against the Kurds.