Evaluation Note/ Nilgün Arısan Eralp

The leaders of the European Union (EU) member states came together last week for one of their biannual summits. While these summits, which used to be closely followed in the past, are no longer of interest to anyone except those working directly in the EU field - and even some of them are not interested- in a Türkiye that has already lost its EU membership perspective and with relations heading towards an uncertain future, President Tayyip Erdoğan's statement last weekend drew attention to the results of the summit. Türkiye's President laid down the condition of "paving the way for Türkiye in the EU" for Sweden's NATO membership to be approved. Even though the issue of EU membership in Türkiye is only rhetorical and it seems impossible to fulfill this condition in the current conjuncture, Türkiye seems to be back on the agenda of the EU. In any case, it does not seem possible for any government in Türkiye to openly say "we have given up on the EU membership perspective", even if the real picture is different. For this reason, it is important to keep track of what happens at EU summits. In fact, it has already been decided at the last summit to prepare a new road map for Türkiye.

As has been the case for a while, the final report of the summit, which took place on June 29-30, refers to Türkiye under the heading "Eastern Mediterranean". Democracy, human rights and the rule of law were not mentioned at all, since Türkiye is no longer considered a candidate by the EU, but treated as a third country.

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