Turkey vs the EU, Germany, and the Netherlands : The Dutch Election Is about More than Electing the Next Dutch Government

There is a diplomatic battle going on in Europe that most US media outlets are ignoring in their coverage of the Dutch election, although it could cause a rift between Turkey and Germany that would impact the flow of refugees into the European Union. And, to add to the tension and importance of the battle, while the Dutch go to the polls Wednesday to select a new govenrment, the Turks will vote on a critically important referendum in one month. • • • WHAT IS THE TURKISH REFERENDUM ALL ABOUT? Turkey goes to the polls on 16 April to vote on constitutional amendments that would transform the country from a parliamentary democracy into a presidential system. The referendum could bring about the most significant political development since the Turkish republic was declared in 1923. Under the new system, President Erdogan will be able to stand in two more election cycles, meaning he could govern as an even more powerful head of state until 2029. The president's supporters say the new system will make Turkey safer and stronger. Opponents fear it will bring in an era of authoritarian one-man rule. • • • THE GERMAN PROBLEM. There are 3 million Turkish nationals or dual passport holders in Germany, many of whom will be able to vote in the Turkish referendum. Reuters reported on Tuesday that Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's push to expand his powers in the April 16 referendum is causing deep divisions in Germany's already fractured Turkish community, splitting families and turning friends into enemies. Reuters says : "Emotions are running especially high after German authorities banned several planned rallies by Turkish ministers, citing public security concerns. Erdogan has branded such bans 'fascist,' infuriating the German government." German Turks are split into pro- and anti-Erdogan factions, with the anti's calling him a dictator, but nonetheless finding it shocking that German, Dutch and other authorities are preventing Turkish politicians from rallying support on European soil for the referendum. Reuters notes that many Turks came to Germany as "Gastarbeiter' (guest workers) in the 1960s and 1970s and contributed to the country's postwar "economic miracle." But the latest conflict has revived debate about the integration of Turks in German society, making Chancellor Angela Merkel and other politicians anxious not to import internal Turkish conflicts into Germany. • Ismail Kupeli, a political science professor at Ruhr-Bochum University, told Reuters he expected about 60% of the 1.4 million Turks in Germany who are eligible to vote in the referendum to back Erdogan, roughly the same percentage that backed the Turkish leader in the last presidential vote. Kupeli says : "Erdogan is trying to shore up support for the referendum here because polls show a narrow majority is against the measure in Turkey. People are being told, 'Either you're for the president or you're terrorists...Either you're for a strong Turkey under Erdogan or a weak Turkey that is under the thumb of the West.' " • And, tensions are even higher after the European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled on Tuesday that companies in the European Union may bar staff from wearing Islamic headscarves or other visible religious symbols -- a decision that could further exacerbate tensions in the Turkish community. • • • THE NETHERLANDS IS GROUND ZERO OF THE BATTLE WITH TURKEY. Turkey has suspended high-level political contacts with the Netherlands and threatened to re-evaluate a key deal to halt the flow of migrants to Europe, escalating dramatically its diplomatic row with EU member states. Numan Kurtulmus, a Turkey deputy prime minister and chief government spokesman, said on Monday that the Dutch ambassador, who is on leave, would not be allowed to return to Ankara in response to a ban on Turkish ministers speaking at rallies in the Netherlands. Kurtulmus also said that Turkey would close its airspace to Dutch diplomats : “There is a crisis and a very deep one. We didn’t create this crisis or bring to this stage...Those creating this crisis are responsible for fixing it.” The spokesman’s remarks came hours after President Erdogan defied pleas from Brussels to tone down his rhetoric, repeating accusations of European “nazism” -- comments that have infuriated German Chancellor Angela Merkel -- and warning that his ministers would take their treatment by the Dutch to the European court of human rights. Erdogan also accused Merkel of “supporting terrorists” and criticized her for backing the Dutch in the row over Turkish campaigning abroad before the April referendum. Erdogan taunted Merkel : “Mrs. Merkel, why are you hiding terrorists in your country?...Why are you not doing anything?” Erdogan told Turkish television that the position adopted by the Dutch and a number of other EU states amounted to nazism : “We can call this neo-nazism. A new nazism tendency.” Merkel had earlier pledged her “full support and solidarity” to the Dutch, saying allegations made twice by Erdogan this weekend that the Dutch government was acting like Nazis were “completely unacceptable.” • Erdogan has also held the Netherlands responsible for the worst genocide in Europe since World War II. In a speech televised live on Tuesday, Erdogan said : “We know the Netherlands and the Dutch from the Srebrenica massacre. We know how rotten their character is from their massacre of 8,000 Bosnians there.” Erdogan’s decision to use the Srebrenica genocide -- for which a previous Dutch government resigned after failing to prevent it -- as a further attack on the Netherlands indicates that Ankara does not intend to back down from the dispute. A lightly armed force of 110 Dutch troops failed to prevent a Bosnian Serb force commanded by Gen Ratko Mladic entering what had been designated a safe haven on July 11, 1995. Moslem men and boys were rounded up, executed and pushed into mass graves. The former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadžic was found guilty of genocide over the massacre by the UN tribunal in March 2016 and sentenced to 40 years in jail. • On Monday, EU foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, and enlargement commissioner, Johannes Hahn, called on Ankara to “refrain from excessive statements and actions.” It is “essential to avoid further escalation and find ways to calm down the situation,” the two said in a joint statement. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg urged all concerned to “show mutual respect and be calm.” Turkey’s minister for EU affairs, Ömer Çelik, said sanctions against the Netherlands are now likely : “We will surely have sanctions against the latest actions by the Netherlands. We will answer them with these." The Turkish justice minister, Bekir Bozdag, said the country would “not allow anyone to play with the honor of the Turkish nation and Turkish state”, while Nurettin Canikli, a deputy prime minister, described Europe as a “very sick man.” • Tureky's growing anger is the result of Dutch police using dogs and water cannon on Sunday to disperse demonstrators after Turkey’s family minister, Fatma Betül Sayan Kaya, was escorted out of the country and the foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavusoglu, was denied permission to land. The ministers were due to address a rally for some of the 400,000 Turks living in the Netherlands, many of whom are eligible to vote in the 16 April referendum. Daan Feddo Huisinga, the Dutch chargé d’affaires in Ankara, was summoned to the foreign ministry on Monday to receive formal protests over the “disproportionate, inhumane and humiliating” treatment of the protesters and the improper reception given to the ministers. • • • TURKEY AND THE EU. The Netherlands, Austria, Germany, Denmark and Switzerland -- all with large Turkish immigrant communities -- have cited security and other concerns as reasons not to allow Turkish officials to campaign in their countries. But with as many as 1.4 million Turkish voters in Germany alone, Erdogan cannot afford to ignore his European electorate. Erdogan has repeated that he could personally try to address rallies in EU countries risk further inflaming the situation. The row also looks likely to dim further or end Turkey’s prospects of joining the EU, a process that has been under way for more than 50 years. German commentator Daniel Brössler wrote in the Süddeutsche Zeitung : “The formal end of accession negotiations with Turkey now looks inevitable.” On Monday, Austria’s chancellor, Christian Kern, called for an EU-wide ban on Turkish rallies, saying it would take pressure off individual countries. But Merkel’s chief of staff, Peter Altmaier, said that while accession talks could be halted, he had doubts as to whether the EU should collectively decide on a rally ban. Analysts believe the Turkish president is using the crisis to show voters that his strong leadership is needed against a Europe he routinely presents as hostile. Soner Cagaptay, the director of the Turkish Research Program at the Washington Institute, says Erdogan is “looking for ‘imagined’ foreign enemies to boost his nationalist base in the run-up to the referendum.” Marc Pierini, the EU’s former envoy to Turkey, told the Guardian he sees no immediate solution to the crisis because “the referendum outcome in Turkey is very tight and the leadership will do everything to ramp up the nationalist narrative to garner more votes.” In the medium term, Pierini said: “One can hope the fever will subside. Yet bridges have been burned at a personal level : using a ‘nazi’ narrative is extreme...and will probably prevent any summit meeting between the EU and Turkey for a while.” Erdogan last week accused Germany of “Nazi practices” and he twice made the same claim of the Dutch on Saturday, describing them as “Nazi remnants” and telling a rally in Istanbul : “I thought nazism was over, but I was wrong. In fact, nazism is alive in the west.” • But, the EU is not totally united against Erdogan. While Denmark has postponed a planned visit next weekend by the Turkish prime minister, Binali Yildirim, saying the meeting could not be seen as “separate from the current Turkish attacks on Holland,” and Turkey foreign minister Çavusoglu has, himself, called off a planned visit to Switzerland, despite the Swiss federal government saying there was “nothing to justify” cancelling it after Zurich police expressed security concerns, the French government allowed Çavusoglu to address a rally in Metz on Sunday, but was strongly criticized by opposition politicians, who accused it of “flagrantly breaking with European solidarity” on the issue. • • • THE DUTCH ELECTION ISSUES. The fundamentals of the Dutch economy are recovering well from the global financial crisis, with unemployment at a five-year low and economic growth at 2.3%. Healthcare and pensions are significant topics of debate, but without major economic concerns facing them, Dutch voters see the biggest issues as immigration and integration. The agenda has been driven by the anti-Islam and anti-EU populist rhetoric of Geert Wilders, the candidate who has led in Dutch polls for the past two months. But, immigration and integration of the huge numbers of refugees and other migrants who have slipped into Europe because of the open-door policies of Merkel, are political issues across Europe. In the Netherlands, the key topics of discussion are multiculturalism, globalization, sovereignty, Dutch values, and how far the EU works -- or doesn’t work -- for the Netherlands. Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister who faces Wilders' challenge in this week’s parliamentary elections, has shown little desire to appease Turkey, and has demanded an apology for Erdogan’s “totally unacceptable” taunts. • Whether Geert Wilders’ PVV party ends in first, second or third place in the Dutch general election, one thing is certain -- the Netherlands will still be gripped by “populism paralysis,” as the Guardian calls it; reporting that all the major political parties have ruled out forming a coalition government with the PVV. But, the leftist Guardian believes this suits Wilders, who, the Guardian says, has shown few signs of actually wanting to govern. The most likely outcome for the Netherlands therefore is a coalition government of mainstream parties operating much like the one now leaving office. • Whatever the Dutch coalition government looks like after Wednesday's election, Dutch politics will continue to be dominated by PVV leader Wilders, whose anti-EU, anti-Islam and anti-immigration platform may get 20%, 25% or even 30% of the vote. His party may come first, as many are predicting, giving Wilders the right to have the first try at forming a coalition government. But, if the other parties hang tough and refuse to join him, he will have to cede. Under the Dutch electoral system, no party can gain a majority and elections are followed by months of negotiations between coalition partners. Wilders argued Rutte was insulting a million voters by excluding him from the negotiations in advance and accused his rivals of being “liars and spendthrifts.” • One Wilders goal is "Nexit" -- the Dutch version of Brexit. This is not as likely to happen in the Netherlands as it was in the UK. The Netherlands is a founding member of the EU and would not easily leave it, although the Dutch are calling for EU reform. But, the populist movement in Europe is growing stronger, and the election of Donald Trump has invigorated them, so while it seems very likely that Wilders will not get enough votes to force the other parties to grant him the right to try to head a government, there were similar feelings in November before President Trump was elected. Tomorrow evening we will have the results, but forming a coalition government takes an average of 71 days in the Netherlands. • • • DEAR READERS, the most interesting question in all this diplomatic swordplay is WHY??? Why would President Erdogan abandon Turkey's once key diplomatic priority -- membership of the European Union? Why would Erdogan force a bitter diplomatic fight with Europe, infuriating Angela Merkel and Mark Rutte, two of the EU’s most liberal leaders. Is it because Erdogan's priorities right now are purely domestic and short-term, as he fights his self-imposed battle for political survival, staking all on winning a referendum to give him the power to transform Turkey and make himself a dictator. Ever since last summer’s military coup attempt, Erdogan, a skillful politician, has exploited continuing threats to the state -- real and fake -- to persuade the Turkish people that they need a different kind of government. Bombings by ISIS and the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK), as well as the network of so-called Gülenists -- whom Erdogan blames for the attempted coup -- have given him plenty of ammunition. It is partly their existence, he argues, that requires the country to impose a more powerful figure at the helm. But, although the polls fluctuate, they have consistently shown that Turkish voters are divided, with about 40% in favor of the changes, 40% against them, and the remaining 20% undecided. Defeat would be a humiliation for a man who feels he has never been adequately thanked by Europe for all Turkey’s efforts in giving safe harbor to millions of Syrian refugees -- but, at an initial price of €6 billion, it would seem that he has been rather handsomely thanked. Party chiefs have good reason to believe Turks in Germany are pro-Erdogan -- in November 2015, when the Turkish people gave Erdogan his latest mandate in national elections, the AKP got 60% among Turkish voters in Germany -- 10% higher than at home. But, Turkey sees the ban on its politicians holding rallies -- it started in Germany at the local level, but was supported by Austria, and then led to the Netherlands protest confrontations -- as a sign that Islamophobes have won the argument in Europe. So, Erdogan's target has shifted -- his audience is not the EU, but the Turkish diaspora and domestic audience. The Turkish press accused the Dutch police of behaving like thugs. Geert Wilders, in feisty campaign mode ahead of Wednesday’s elections, seized the moment, claiming that dual Dutch- Turkish citizens “don’t belong here.” Wilders has also called for Turkey’s ambassador to the Netherlands to be expelled. It is hard to see how the vitriol will subside. But, for Erdogan, that is tomorrow's problem. Today he must win the referendum. • And, I believe Erdogan has turned the page -- he is no longer interested in being subservient to EU demands for democratic reforms. He has carefully built his glidepath to becoming the dictator that Europe accuses him of being. The day when Turkey stood in the middle separating Christian Europe from Moslem Middle East is gone. Erdogan sees Turkey's future in the crescent reaching from Istanbul to Teheran. He will not miss Europe, although he may continue to threaten it with a new flood of Moslem refugees. Now, only the United States, Israel and NATO have serious roles to play in Turkey. Erdogan the dictator -- he must be coddled and controlled if the Middle East and Europe are to have any chance of democratic survival.