Why doesn't the EU use its economic power to deal with Turkey's demands?

Question

Despite Turkey having a (in comparison) weak economy, the European Union seems incapable of putting them into their place.

As far as I can tell, there is no reason to fear a military conflict (NATO), nor any major losses for Europe's economy, if sanctions are set up. Turkey also doesn't seem to have any important allies, who would want to risk an economic conflict with the EU.

Given the recent events at the Greek border or the Syrian war, it's likely that the EU will offer Turkey further financial aid. Angela Merkel already said "further support for Turkey is an option" (Source; german: https://www.nzz.ch/international/merkel-haelt-am-fluechtlingsdeal-mit-der-tuerkei-fest-ld.1543995)

I don't see any reason why the EU would need to follow Turkish demands (from a strategical standpoint, but correct me if I am wrong).

Why doesn't the European Union act like the economic superpower they are and force Turkey to follow their demands?

Answer 1

You seem to fundamentally misread the situation. Turkey does not owe it to the EU to help them save face and solve their problems for them. Erdogan has leverage and the EU is listening to him because they need him to solve their refugee problem for them.

If Turkey does nothing, people show up at the border. Turkey is under no obligation to protect EU borders for them or keep people on its territory. Internationally, Turkey hasn't recognized that the Geneva convention applies in this situation but it does in fact fulfill basic obligations towards Syrian refugees, hosts many on its territory and collaborates with the UNHCR. Many countries (include EU countries) do not fully respect this provision but under international law, refugees are supposed to be free to move in their country of refuge so why wouldn't some of them try to make it to the border?

Once you recognize that situation for what it is and give up the entitlement, you can begin to have a realist look at policy options. Would threats and sanctions be more effective or less costly than bribing Erdogan with financial help and a bit of indulgence? Is the EU prepared to face the consequences of demanding blatantly illegal actions on Turkey's part or of its threats being ignored? It's much easier to maintain the fiction that all this is just some well-meaning help to support refugees and avoid the tough decisions EU countries faced in 2015.

Importantly, the EU is not a country and is very legalistic. It does maintain some unity in matters of trade and there the size of its economy is relevant but that's it. Quite apart from the legitimacy or effectiveness of such a strategy, the EU has seldom been able to agree on strategic goals or wield raw power against international law so there is no reason to expect it would do it in this matter. Incidentally, several EU countries are neutral and not all are NATO members.

Answer 2

As far as I can tell, there is no reason to fear a military conflict (NATO), nor any major losses for Europe's economy, if sanctions are set up. Turkey also doesn't seem to have any important allies, who would want to risk an economic conflict with the EU.

While Turkey is a NATO member, there's also tension. The migrants are one thing, buying military equipment from Russia is another. While the EU is clearly the bigger player, it doesn't have that much control over Turkey.

Turkey is in a position where it is friendly with many international players (the EU, the US, China, Russia, and some players in the Arab world) but it's not fully committed to any of them in the way, say, the Netherlands and Belgium are to each other. Each of these relationships also has sources of tension. For example, military conflict with Russia or the Uighur situation with China.

Having such delicate relationships with many superpowers means that one can break. While other nations may be pressured without a real way out, Turkey can simply shift its focus to align with the Sino-Russian world.

Now, the refugee crisis may be troublesome, but it's not that big of a deal, not worth losing a strategic ally over. Turkey is probably putting some pressure to get something. Turkey doesn't stand to gain much from simply stressing its relationship with the EU.

As such, I think the EU is looking to defuse the situation rather than putting extra oil on the proverbial fire.

Answer 3

Cultural and legal aspects aside, some interesting factoids can be gleaned by looking at the EU-Turkey trade, especially broken down by EU country. Turkey is a large-ish trading partner of the Eastern EU countries. Bulgaria tops the list percentage-wise with a quarter of its exports going to Turkey. Not surprisingly, they are also Turkey's best advocate in the EU. So a (Trump style) trade war with Turkey would probably significantly impact the poorest EU countries the most. They are already in conflict with the Western EU over climate policy etc. A trade war with Turkey would further aggravate the divisions in the EU. Yeah, the Western EU members could compensate (even more) the Eastern ones, but you can probably guess how smooth that's gonna go; see Poland. Basically, in this perspective the Western EU has the choice of paying Turkey directly, or starting a trade war with it and paying compensation the Eastern EU countries...

Besides, the EU's economy is not as booming as the US one. It still has major problems in its south and wants to avoid a recession. So the EU is probably looking for the least costly solution, rather than the "most muscular".

Also, even for Trump it was relatively hard for him to get the "small fish" Guatemala (one tenth of Turkey's economy) to agree to a Turkey-like deal (i.e. act as an off-shore asylum processing queue for the neighboring countries). Trump used mostly threats (of taxes on remittances and zero visas) and a few carrots (promises of more temp farmworkers visas). This level of bargaining won't really work with Turkey now, since they already accuse the EU of reneging their visa promises for Turkish citizens.

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As a bit of an aside, the EU actually did impose some sanctions on Turkey fairly recently, in relation to the Cyprus gas fields dispute:

Today [27 February 2020] the Council has placed two persons under restrictive measures in relation to Turkey's unauthorised drilling activities in the Eastern Mediterranean. These persons are responsible for or involved in planning, directing and implementing offshore hydrocarbon exploration activities in the Eastern Mediterranean which have not been authorised by the Republic of Cyprus.

The restrictive measures consist of a travel ban to the EU and an asset freeze. Moreover, EU persons and entities are not allowed to make funds available to the two listed persons.

But as you can see these are more along the lines of the kinds that the EU has imposed against Russia (in relation to Crimea), i.e. they are not broad sanction. Their effect is probably going to be quite limited.

Also, as mentioned in the latter article, Council-imposed sanctions require unanimity...

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Someone commenting below misread my answer as me saying that the EU must pay Turkey. I'm just saying that getting Turkey to comply via economic sanctions which is the topic of this question may not be as a easy as some would think. The EU presently seems to focus (instead) on a closed [Greek] border approach. The EU's response today is hardly similar to what it was in 2015:

Some humanitarian groups have expressed anger at how Greece and Turkey are dealing with the situation at the border, as Greek authorities said they had thwarted another 1,000 attempted border crossings overnight.

"We've seen quite a lot of unhappiness with some of the language that's being used," Euronews correspondent Jack Parrock reported from Brussels, citing von der Leyen's use of the term "shield". "They are concerned that this is language that is not appropriate from the European Union when a lot of the people coming are obviously fleeing wars in Syria and in other places as well".

"What we've seen today is a hard line and an inhumane response. EU leaders today have let Greece off the hook for closing its borders, and off the hook for shutting down the right to asylum for people in need," Eve Geddie, Amnesty International's Deputy Director of Advocacy told Euronews Now.

She said EU leaders had missed an opportunity to show solidarity with migrants. Disputing Turkey's classification as a "safe country", she said the EU should allow people to claim asylum.

Whether this border closure will prove tenable/sufficient in itself or not and then the EU might have to deal (again) with the problem further "upstream" in Turkey, either with carrots or (less likely) sticks... time will tell.

The EU has also been paying African countries to keep their migrants away... (sources on this vary between 1 and a 2bn euros) and more or less subtly conditioning aid on migration reduction.

Answer 4

Countries can only do so much, short of war, before they run out of worthwhile means of applying pressure. That is one of the reasons not to jump to sanctions.

The EU commission, as has already been said, is rather legalistic and appears to have a genuine institutional commitment to liberalism and the principle of supranational institutions, and the ECJ tends to feel the same way. That means it is unlikely to help the member states violate the spirit of the refugee convention or other international laws even once they agree a policy position, unless they compel it to through treaty change. That's improbable, since the member states are too divided on what refugee policy their governments or voters want, what they'll say they want at home and abroad, or what their present policies are achieving.

Also, some of the hostility to Turkey looks rather like it is intended mainly for domestic audiences. Aside from Germany (which is restricted by its own constitution), most of the destination countries could be a lot harsher to refugees without penalty even before they can make a deal to block sanctions. Blaming a foreign country for something you've no intention of doing anything about is easy, and it is less likely to lead to the kind of unintended reactions blaming EU or Council of Europe institutions has caused.

Answer 5

Start with looking at Turkey. They have a land border to war-torn Syria where a lot of refugees originate. They could try to block of their border to Syria but this is very hard to do with millions trying to cross and would result in a humanitarian night mare. So Turkey doesn't do it and has several million Syrian refugees within its borders which causes major issues (financial, social etc). Now Turkey also has a border to some EU countries and if they do nothing some portion of the refugees will try to leave Turkey to go to the EU. This ameliorates the refuge situation in Turkey at costs nothing.

Now if Turkey does nothing millions of refugees come to the EU which the EU doesn't want. So now the EU could try to block their own borders but that is expensive and also requires force which the EU tends to be squeamish about. Or they could just pay Turkey to do it and get their hands dirty instead. If they want to play tough on Turkey, the EU would have to be willing to either properly close their own borders or accept the refugees. It is probably both easier and cheaper to just pay off Turkey.

Answer 6

A lot of answers talked about economic sanctions as it it was the only possible instrument and then talked about the difficulty of using such instrument. But in reality they are not the only instrument. Europe could just stop paying the billions of Euros it gives to Turkey every single year to allegedly support the refugees, but as a result to support the war. Beside those funds are there other means to put pressure on Turkey? Yes, for example there are millions of Turkish citizens working or studying in Europe, a freeze on new Visas will surely damage the government support, Even though Turkey in the last decade has been trying to shift their economic balance toward Russia I guess that those willing to work abroad would not be so happy to have Russia as the only option.

The real answer is different, why the governments don't take action? The situation is similar to Latin America countries where the US pays militias and criminal gangs to destabilize the country and force the population to migrate in order to get some slaves. The European leaders see the conflict in Syria in the same way. They have no interest in stopping Turkish meddling in the Syrian war or the way refugees are treated.

Edit: I restored the sentence mentioning slavery. A user deleted it on the ground that slavery is outlawed in the United States for over 150 years. That user pretends not to see the difference between legal appearance and the actual situation. He even forgot that after abolishing slavery the US adopted for a long time Jim Crow laws.