Was the EU involved in pressuring the Turkish military to accept Erdogan's rise to power?

Submitted by Bernard Baars (United States), Dec 24, 2014 at 18:30

Thank you for an excellent summary of yet ANOTHER major failure of Western policy, the retrogression of Turkey to some version of the Ottoman past.

I seem to remember that the European Union pressured the Turkish military to give in to Erdogan, at a time when Turkey was hoping for membership in the EU. As you write, even the post-Ataturk history of Turkey suggests the need for a stabilizing military or police force, the same pattern we see in other Muslim countries that have tried to modernize, including Pakistan and Egypt. The alternative to some balance between a modernist military and political movements based in Islamic regression is not democracy; it is one-man rule. Even French democracy was wildly unstable until Charles de Gaulle rose to power and rewrote the constitution. As far as I know, Muslim governments without a strong military and police, even with all the corruption that entails, simply do not survive.

In any case, my specific question is about the role of the EU in empowering Erdogan, at a time when those major hidden money flows were clearly shaping politics in some European countries.

Thank you.

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