Econ_Sep_22

The Economist

September 22nd 2018

For daily analysis and debate on Europe, visit

Economist.com/europe

LL they were hoping to do, said the or-

ganisers of an art festival in Wies-

baden, a small city on the banks of the

Rhine, when they installed a four-metre

statue of Recep Tayyip Erdogan in the

town’s central square in lateAugust, was to

spark a debate about the Turkish president

and free speech. They got one, and then

some. Some locals lit candles near a sign

bearing the words “press freedom” that

had been placed by Mr Erdogan’s feet. A

woman spat on the statue. Others covered

it with graffiti. Scuffles broke out between

the strongman’s Turkish supporters and

his Kurdish opponents. Fearing more trou-

ble, the mayor ordered the fire brigade to

have the statue pulled down, barely a day

after it was erected.

German police may face much bigger

protestswhen the real Mr Erdogan touches

down in Berlin on September 28th for his

first official visit to Germany, Turkey’s

NATO

ally and its biggest trade partner, in

over four years. He has not been missed.

Germany is home to around 3m people of

Turkish origin, almost two-thirds ofwhom

voted to give Mr Erdogan sweeping new

powers in a controversial referendum in

2017 and to re-elect him as president a year

later. This came as a shock to the rest of the

country. Dislike ofMr Erdogan is one of the

rency briefly rallied after a whopping 6.25

percentage-point rise in interest rates by

the central bankon September13th, only to

erase most of its gains in less than a week.

Inflation is near 18%. Foreign investors are

staying away.

RelationswithAmerica are theworst in

over four decades, plagued by the fallout

from Turkey’s arrest of an evangelical pas-

tor, Mr Erdogan’s decision to shop for a

missile-defence system in Russia and the

Pentagon’s support for Kurdish insurgents

in Syria. Even the rapprochement with

Russia is on a shaky footing, despite a re-

cent deal that buys Turkey additional time

to avert a new massacre by the Syrian re-

gime on its doorstep in Idlib province (see

Middle East and Africa section). Mr Erdo-

gan needs a reset withGermany, saysMus-

tafa Nail Alkan, an academic at Gazi Uni-

versity in Ankara. “Turkey needs a partner

whom it can trust,” he says.

The viewfrom the chancellery

Germany is also keen tonormalise ties and

help avert an economic disaster in Turkey.

A serious downturn might tempt Mr Erdo-

gan to rethink his commitment to a deal

that prevents hundreds of thousands of

Syrian refugees fromreaching the

.With

the anti-immigrant party, Alternative for

Germany, looking over her shoulder, Mrs

Merkel’s jobwould be on the line if Turkey

backed out of the deal.

Signs of a thaw are hard to miss. Mr Er-

dogan and his friends in the media have

toned down their polemics. Most of the

German nationals in Turkish prisons, in-

cluding two journalists, have been re-

leased. (Seven remain under arrest, how-

ever, and an Austrian journalist and

few things that unites all Germany’s politi-

cal families. Leftists and greens accuse him

ofmass human-rights violations, especial-

ly in Turkey’s Kurdish south-east. The far

right resents his support formosque-build-

ing in Germany. Even centrists, led by

Chancellor Angela Merkel and her Chris-

tian Democrats, cringe at Mr Erdogan’s

brand of Islamic nationalism and his

clampdown on dissent.

Relations reached rock-bottom last

year. At least 30 German citizens ended up

behind bars in Turkey, part of an avalanche

ofarrests that followeda failed

coup.Mr

Er-

dogan personally accused Germany of

sheltering some of the putschists. After

German officials blocked Turkish minis-

ters from stumping for him across the

country, he compared them to Nazis. Mrs

Merkel’s government responded by cut-

ting state credit guarantees for exports to

Turkey and pullingGerman troops out of a

Turkish air base.

Mr Erdogan now seems to have no

choice but to start rebuilding the bridges he

has burned. Turkey’s economy is on the

brink of recession. The lira has lost more

than 40% of its value against the dollar

since the start of the year, a nightmare for

banks and Turkish companies saddled

withdebt denominated indollars. The cur-

Turkey and Europe

Hello to Berlin

BERLIN AND ISTANBUL

As Turkey’s president visits Germany, hopes of a reset are too optimistic

Europe

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