According to the head of the European People’s Party, Manfred Weber, the process of Turkey’s accession to the European Union must be closed once and for all.

The leader of the German European People’s Party said in a statement to the German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost after the victory of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the elections Sunday,

The question of Türkiye’s accession to the European Union should be put aside forever,

Because it “impedes rather than helps” the relationship between society and the state, which has been a candidate for membership since 1999.

According to Manfred Weber, “The European Union remains open to partnership, since Turkey is a direct neighbor and there are many common challenges. However, it also has expectations: the head of state whose position is confirmed must strive to unite society and modernize the country, and must cooperate with the Union European Union in establishing peace between Russia and Ukraine, in immigration policy and in settling the situation in Cyprus.

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Erdogan may remain at the helm of Türkiye for another five years

There was no surprise, according to the non-final results, that Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who had been at the helm of the country for two decades as prime minister and then as head of state, won the second round of the Turkish presidential elections. The former star of the German national football team, Mesut Ozil, stood next to the winner who toppled the secular Turkish state. Viktor Orban was the first to congratulate.

Above all, “Erdoğan must immediately contribute to Sweden’s membership in NATO,” the Bavarian Christian Social Union (CSU) politician stated.

Jurgen Hardt, a leading foreign policy expert in the German federal parliamentary (Bundestag) faction of the CDU and its sister party, the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said the same, and according to him, the next big “test” for the party will be the relationship between the EU and Turkey. Is how the re-elected president decides Sweden’s accession to NATO and how he “acts” at the NATO summit in Vilnius in July.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz congratulated Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a tweet after the election results were announced Sunday, adding that Berlin wants to promote common causes with “new impetus.”

Germany is home to the largest transnational Turkish community with a population of nearly three million. In the second round of the presidential election in Turkey on Sunday, nearly one in two of the one and a half million Turks in Germany were eligible to vote. Recep Tayyip Erdogan won 67.4 percent of the vote, much better than he did in his home country, where he got 52.14 percent. And on Sunday evening, several German cities celebrated his victory with impromptu car shows.

According to German Federal Minister of Agriculture Cem Ozdemir, Turks in Germany who support Erdogan celebrate in such a way that they do not have to bear the consequences of their decision, unlike many of their compatriots in Turkey, who stay for their own sake. In the power of the politician who has led the country as prime minister since 2003 and head of state since 2014 is “poverty and freedom means ‘without’.”

Thanks to the election result, a member of the German government of Turkish origin wrote on Twitter, “Many people in Turkey have lost all hope.” The politician from the Green Party explained that the crowds celebrating Erdogan in the German streets indicate that the Turks in Germany reject “pluralistic democracy” and that their integration into German society has “failed”, which he says that in the coming period we should expect that. Turkish “ultra-nationalism” and Islamic religious “fundamentalism” are gaining strength in their circle.

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Related photo: AFP




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