European Union leaders face a difficult balancing act over the EU-Turkey relationship, on the eve of a crucial summit.
The EU Council meeting, with the eastern Mediterranean dispute high on the agenda, takes place on Thursday and Friday after being postponed last week when the council’s president, Charles Michel, tested positive for the novel coronavirus.
On Wednesday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a letter to the 27 leaders: “I would like to emphasise once again that we are ready for dialogue with Greece without any preconditions,” as he urged Brussels to “remain impartial” to help resolve a “new test” in bilateral relations.
On the one hand, the EU leaders are eager not to upset Turkey as it prepares to reopen a dialogue with Greece on delimiting maritime jurisdictions, after a hiatus of four and a half years.
On September 13, Turkey withdrew its exploration ship, Oruc Reis, from waters awarded to Greece under the UN Law of the Sea. A summer-long standoff nearly saw the two NATO members go to war. The Oruc Reis’s withdrawal fulfilled a Greek precondition for talks to recommence.
On the other hand, EU leaders face a strong demand for sanctions against Turkey from EU member Cyprus, towards which Turkey has shown no softening.
A Turkish seismic survey ship and a drillship remain on Cyprus’s continental shelf – an area where Cyprus exercises exclusive rights to exploit mineral wealth under the sea bed.
Weighing up rewards and punishments for Turkey is complicated by the fact that the EU is currently trying to assert its authority in Belarus as well, by levying sanctions for election fraud there. Cyprus threatens to veto those plans if it does not get sanctions against Turkey.
“It will be extremely difficult for Cyprus to drop its veto threat without getting something in return … we could hit a dead end. The thriller at this summit will be over Cyprus,” said Kostas Yfantis, a professor of international relations at Panteion University in Athens and Turkey expert.
Unsurprisingly, Cyprus’s stance has caused irritation among Nordic politicians closer to the Belarusian border than the Turkish.
“Cyprus continues to veto sanctions against the repression and election falsification in Belarus. This will become a powerful argument in favour of abandoning the principle of unanimity on issues like these,” tweeted Swedish former Prime Minister Carl Bildt, who now co-chairs the European Council on Foreign Relations, a think-tank.
Germany, which currently holds the EU presidency and helped broker the renewed Greece-Turkey talks, has reportedly told Cyprus not to expect sanctions on the grounds that they will harden Turkey’s stance and be counterproductive.