Turkey and the EU need a new start

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu says Turkey’s EU perspective remains one of his government’s strategic objectives. The fact that Volkan Bozkır, a former ambassador who knows Europe well, has been appointed as EU minister is a good sign in this regard.

Davutoğlu’s choice of foreign minister could also be seen in the same light. Like Bozkır, the soft-spoken Mevlüt Çavusoğlu, a former President of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, also knows Europe well.

Words of commitment, however, are not sufficient. Turkey’s ties with the EU have been seriously lagging and there is the need to reenergize them with concrete steps.

The EU side is not innocent, of course, in terms of the dampening of Turkish enthusiasm with regards the EU. The standoffishness and openly discouraging attitude of some member states has not helped. Turkey however is not innocent either, having not only slowed down its reform process, but also started to roll back the democratic advances made over the past decade.

This means that Davutoğlu will have to show that Ankara’s EU perspective is indeed a strategic one for Turkey. Unfortunately, though, it is not clear how this is going to happen given President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s political agenda.

Even Erdoğan’s choice of chief economic advisor adds to the doubts on this score. The verbally abrasive former journalist Yiğit Bulut has made a reputation for himself with his vitriolic anti-European remarks and claims that the EU is out to destroy Turkey.

It is clear that Davutoğlu will be taking his cue from Erdoğan, so one wonders how he plans to advance Turkey’s “strategic” EU perspective under these...