The Green Deal was first announced by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in December 2019. This “jobs and growth agenda for Europe” was the talk of the town in Brussels. “They can’t do it” was the talk of the town in Ankara. It simply seemed too radical, too disruptive.
Afghanistan is very rich in pomegranates. Afghans call it by the Persian word for pomegranate, “anar.” We in Turkey chop off the first letter and call it “nar.” The fruit is considered to be the symbol of abundance. As children’s riddle goes: “At the market, I bought one, at home I had a thousand. What is it?” There are actually parts of northern Afghanistan, especially where Turkish is almost enough to get one by on the street.
Cyprus gained its independence from Britain in 1960. Since then, we have had a simmering conflict between the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities of the island. There has always been intercommunal talks to ease the inherent tensions, but they all failed to bring lasting peace.
The year 2021 is the centenary of the establishment of the Communist Party of China (CCP). It is also the centenary of the first constitution of modern Turkey.
Since 2018, Turkey only comes up in EU Commission documents under the heading of the eastern Mediterranean, treated not as a “necessary partner” but as an “adversary.” This is because the European Council, meaning the political leadership of all countries, wanted it that way.
Turkey’s relationship with the West was a marriage of reason. Despite recent tensions, the reasons for that union continue to exist. Turkey’s economic and social transformation is good for European security. This will be all the more so in the post-pandemic recovery process. The Green New Deal on both sides of the Atlantic is set to energize Turkey’s relations with the West in general, and EU-Turkey relations in particular. The European Council summit on June 24-25 could yield a critical decision to this end. Let me tell you why.
The pandemic has changed many things we used to take for granted, such as the way we live, the way we work, and the way we interact with each other. This is a year like no other. The pandemic has also made the way we have been comparing our performance from one year to the other and from one quarter to the other obsolete.
Living in Ankara these days increasingly feels like being in the world of the fictional Hunger Games series, the dystopian novel by Suzanne Collins. In the world of “Panem,” the Capitol houses the rich and the talented, and the 13 districts are home to the poor and laboring masses. Every year, there are “games,” gathering a pool of talented young people at the Capitol and pitting them in a fight to the death. The winner gets to live in Panem.
In the rapidly changing agenda of our fair country, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan points to robust growth in the first quarter of 2021. The official figures will be announced on Monday, but a strong growth performance after the negative impact of COVID-19 in Q1 2020 figures will not be a surprise.
