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The Turkish AKP party of President Recep Tayyip Erdoan will run in the European Elections in Germany, according to media reports, with high-ranking German politicians noting it will expand Turkish influence in the EU.

The AKP affiliate in Germany, the Democratic Alliance for Diversity and Awakening (Dava), consists of four candidates who have all previously campaigned for Erdoans AKP or its support organisations, Bild reported on Sunday.

High-ranking German politicians were quick to denounce the move as further contributing to the deterioration of the political climate within the country.

An Erdoan offshoot running for elections here is the last thing we need, Green agriculture minister Cem zdemir, who has a Turkish migration background, wrote on X.

The CDU, the largest opposition party, also criticised the move. An Erdogan-AKP offshoot in Germany would be another extreme party in the country, Deputy Leader Jens Spahn of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group said on X.

There are currently 1.3 million German citizens who have a Turkish migration background, according to the German Federal Statistical Office, around 1.6% of the German population.

Since the 5% electoral threshold, which usually keeps smaller parties out of parliament in the German federal election, will not apply to the EU election, political newcomers have more chance of winning a place in the European Parliament.

During the last European Election in 2019, six small parties that did not have any representatives at the national or regional level made it into the European Parliament, with some of them not getting more than 0.7% of the votes.

There is, thus, a plethora of new parties running for the election, increasing the fragmentation of the German political landscape.

We are currently seeing parties springing up everywhere, and their sole purpose and exercise is to ultimately tear Europe apart from within, German liberal lead candidate Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann said when asked about Dava.

And we have to realise that Europe has never been under so much pressure, in terms of foreign policy and domestic policy, as it is now, the FDP politician told die Welt.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]

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Erdogan's party to run in EU-election, expand Turkey's influence - EURACTIV

An F-16 fighter jet takes off during a media day of NATOs Air Defender 23 military exercise at Spangdahlem US Air Base near the German-Belgian border in Spangdahlem, Germany, June 14, 2023. [Jana Rodenbusch, Reuters]

Main opposition party SYRIZA released a statement on Sunday demanding that the government address what it termed as aggressive statements by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan following the US State Departments approval of Turkeys request for F-16s.The statement highlighted Erdogans comments who said that the struggle does not end by throwing the enemy into the sea.

SYRIZA claimed this was evidence of Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis diplomatic error in relying on the non-legally binding Athens Declaration signed in December for improved Greek-Turkish relations.

The opposition party emphasized its prior warnings that without a comprehensive national strategy engaging Turkey in a dialogue based on international law and respect for good neighborly relations, Turkey would revert to provocations once it secured its demands.

SYRIZA further sought government confirmation regarding alleged US terms imposed on Turkey within the F-16 sale and modernization program, citing recent statements by US congressional leaders refuting any conditions restricting aircraft use against Greece and Cyprus.

US President Joe Bidens administration on Friday formally informed Congress of its intention to proceed with a $8.6-billion deal to sell 20 Lockheed Martin F-35 stealth fighter jets to Greece.

At the same time, it announced the $23 billion sale of F-16 fighter jets to Turkey, a deal that Washington advanced as it tries to strike a balance between two alliance members with a history of tense relations.

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SYRIZA condemns Erdogans provocative statements following F-16 approval - Kathimerini English Edition

If the first Turk in space, Alper Gezeravci, has been looking up viral videos during some of the quieter moments on the International Space Station (ISS), he might have been slightly unsettled by the re-emergence of 2021 footage in which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan criticises the spending of hundreds of millions of dollars for a few minutes of touristic space travel while people on Earth starve to death.

Erdogan, as you might expect, was last week praising the four-man mission that has put figher pilot Gezeravci into orbit, despite critics complaining that Turkey has paid Texas startup Axiom Space tens of millions of dollars for the privilege of including its astronaut on the commercial space journey.

However, on October 27, 2021, addressing the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) 8th Ministerial Conference Responsible for Food Security and Agricultural Development, held in Istanbul, Erdogan said: On the one hand, 810 million people do not have access to the most basic foodstuffs, while on the other hand, large capital owners can spend hundreds of millions of dollars for a few minutes of touristic space travel.

Opposition Future Party deputy Selcuk Ozdag shared Erdogans 2021 video, saying: This man is always tested with his claims.

Gezeravci is in fact due to stay in space for two weeks and he and the rest of the crew will conduct more than 30 scientific experiments in microgravity, with many focused on human health and tackling disease.

Nevertheless, Sinan Ciddi, a non-resident senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), a Washington, DC-based nonpartisan research institute, with a reference to Turkeys upcoming end-of-March local elections, described the mission as not science and a cheap election stunt.

Erdogan, in a message on X, stressed the missions alignment with Turkeys National Space Program, announced in 2021. He pointed to its potential contributions to science across various fields, including astronomy, medicine, genetics and materials science.

The missions Crew Dragon vessel, as well as the Falcon 9 rocket that carried the vessel into to orbit, were supplied, launched and operated by Elon Musks SpaceX under contract with Axiom.

Back on Earth, meanwhile, the world of online video was also last week focused on manipulated AI-generated footage that showed Istanbuls popular opposition mayor Ekrem Imamoglu praising Erdogan's party.

In the national elections of May last year, misinformation on social networks was even spread by Erdogan, who at a rally showed an election video made by the opposition alliance that had been manipulated to include leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, PKK, thus portraying alleged terrorist leaders as supporting the opposition.

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Old video of Erdogan slamming costly space travel goes viral as president applauds first Turk in orbit - bne IntelliNews

Courts are necessary to wage culture wars and create a climate of fear among dissidents the sine quo non for a dictatorship. But to move from a proto-dictator to a real one, Trump would need full loyalty from the judiciary. Thats easier said than done in America, where the judicial system is designed to put limits on the executive and judges have long tenures. Trump may have shifted the balance of power on the Supreme Court and appointed more than 200 federal judges to reshape the federal judiciary, including an impressive number of appointments to the powerful appeals court and district courts. That means by the end of his term, over a quarter of active judges were Trump appointees.

But thats not so unusual. The courts have long been an ideological battleground in U.S. politics and the highest number of judicial appointments in modern times came during Ronald Reagans presidency though it still wasnt enough to create a permanent right-wing governance structure. Moreover, not all Trump appointees have ruled in ways Donald Trump wanted, even though many emerged from some type of a Republican vetting process through an alliance with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.

Based on examples from Hungary, Poland and Turkey, we can safely say that Trumps real problem will not be the loyalty or the conservative credentials of his judicial appointees but the presence of others the non-Trumpians. Out of 800-something federal judges (numbers vary depending on vacancies), only a quarter have been appointed by Trump, leaving hundreds of others within the system. Meanwhile, the Biden administration has been in a race to shape the courts by filling vacancies and pushing ahead with confirmations of their own, non-Trumpy judges.

In a country that prides itself on checks and balances, cleaning up the hundreds of active judges and prosecutors who are not loyal to him would present a challenge for any burgeoning autocrat, since judges have long tenures and plenty of independence. The U.S. Constitution says federal judges may hold their position during good behavior meaning, lifelong. This makes it harder to push around or penalize unruly justices even when their verdicts go against the wishes of the White House.

What Trump would really need to bring the judiciary to heel is a centralized administrative structure, as in Turkey, Hungary and elsewhere, where he could easily reassign uncooperative judges to different courts, take punitive action, or relocate them to different cities all common practices in Turkey. Instead, the U.S. has overlapping judicial systems and once an appointment is made, it is harder to fully control a judge. U.S. judges also are well compensated, and, in some states, directly elected, further increasing their independence.

All this makes the full control of the U.S. judiciary a long-term, even a multi-generational challenge for an aspiring autocrat. Trump could try to do what populists elsewhere have tried, namely, changing the rules of the game. Since 2010, Orban and his Fidesz Party have incrementally dismantled the independence of the judiciary by forcing judges into retirement, creating an alternative court system and expanding the powers of the Minister of Justice over the judges. Law and Justice in Poland tried to reshape the courts through similar methods after it regained power in 2015, including lowering the retirement age and expanding the powers of a national body that appoints judges. It used government-controlled media to target judges and made courts a core element of its culture wars. But at each step of the way, Law and Justice met significant pushback and eventually lost power last October.

The judiciary was a big headache for Erdogan as well. In 2006, the Turkish governments attempts to reshape the justice system and break the monopoly of secularists met with enormous social pushback, forcing the government to hold referendums on judiciary reforms in 2007 and 2010. But what finally gave Erdogan the control he wanted was his declaration of emergency presidential powers after a failed coup attempt in 2016 that allowed the president or Turkish Justice Department the right to dismiss or move judges at will.

Can Trump claim similar emergency powers? Not without first gaining institutional and social consensus. Even in Turkey, it took a bloody military coup attempt for Erdogan to assume the type of powers he wanted. Trump would need a dramatic event of similar nature that would serve as a force-majeure and convince U.S. society that it would be OK for the president to take control of the judiciary.

Of course, Trump has other options that are legally available but politically difficult. Surprisingly, the U.S. Constitution does not stipulate the number of judges at the Supreme and District courts. If he has the support of Congress, Trump could pack the courts by expanding the number of judges on federal benches and the Supreme Court. But such a move would be too alarming and unlikely to be fully backed by Congress or the Republican establishment. President Franklin D. Roosevelt tried to pack the courts but failed. It is hard to imagine Trumps Justice Department being able to build in four more years the social and institutional consensus to achieve what FDR failed to do after the New Deal.

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Trump Can't Be Dictator on 'Day One' Or in a Second Term. Here's Why. - POLITICO

New Atlanticist

January 23, 2024

By Atlantic Council experts

Application: still pending. Its been 615 days since Sweden submitted its request to join NATO, and while its not in the Alliance yet, it got closer on Tuesday when Turkeys parliament approved its accession. The ratification now goes to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoan to sign, after which all allies will have approved Swedens membership except Hungary. Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbn, who had previously promised that his country would not be the last, on Tuesday invited his Swedish counterpart to Budapest to discuss the matter. Below, Atlantic Council experts explain how Turkey voted, why Hungary is delaying, and what Sweden should expect next.

Click to jump to an expert analysis:

Defne Arslan: Erdogans political gamble hints at a deal on F-16s

Anna Wieslander: Will Hungary now follow Turkeys lead in approving Swedens accession?

Rich Outzen: A long road for Swedens accession, but its heading in the right direction

The Turkish parliaments vote for Swedens accession to NATO marks a milestone in a prolonged approval process since Erdoan announced in July 2023 that he would send the ratification to parliament. The bill was finally discussed at parliaments foreign affairs commission in late December, resulting in a recommendation just before parliaments winter recess to get the bill approved on the floor. Its worth noting that the accession protocol was supported by the main opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP) in addition to the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) and their alliance partner the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).

During the long negotiations, Ankara has demanded that Stockholm step up in its fight against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and others. Turkeys point was that NATO members should take member countries security concerns seriously, and Sweden needs to take Turkeys concerns seriously in order to be in NATO. Eventually, a series of measures passed by Sweden, including a new anti-terrorism law that went into effect last year, helped to ease Turkeys concerns.

Meanwhile, as these discussions continued with Sweden, Turkey also saw an opportunity to receive from the United States its long-delayed package of new F-16 fighter jets and upgrades to its existing fleet, noting again that NATO members need to take fellow member-state security measures seriously. Indeed, the renewal of the F-16 program is not only in Turkeys security interest, but also in the United States security interest in the region.

The next step is Erdoan sending the bill to Turkeys official gazette, so the law can take effect. But after the recent PKK attacks in Northern Iraq killing twenty-one Turkish soldiers, Erdoan is taking a big risk in giving a green light to the bill given the sensitivity of the PKK issue among the Turkish people. The most likely explanation is that Turkey has secured F-16s from the United States in return. That would help Erdoan use this deal as a political issue in the upcoming March local elections, which are hugely important for the Turkish president as he is determined to take back Istanbul and several other major cities that the AKP lost to the opposition in previous local elections.

Defne Arslan is the senior director and founder of Atlantic Council IN TURKEY, leading the Councils global work and programming on Turkey.

There is one word that sums up the feelings in Stockholm today: FINALLY! The Turkish parliament has, at last, voted yes to Swedens accession protocol to NATO. What was supposed to be a fast-track process hand-in-hand with Finland, after quick ratifications by twenty-eight allies, turned into a frustrating journey for Sweden, as the process first was haltered and then fragmented by Turkey when Finland was allowed to join on April 4, 2023, but not Sweden. Meanwhile, the security situation in Europe has continued to deteriorate.

Step-by-step, rather than fast-track, is the best way to characterize the process. The question now is what the final steps will be. On the Turkish side, the parallel F-16 deal with the United States is still looming. On the Hungarian side, the other ally that has not yet ratified Swedens accession, new obstacles are emerging. Prime Minister Viktor Orbn announced today on X that he had sent a letter to Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and invited him to visit Hungary to negotiate on Swedens NATO accession. Up until now, Sweden has taken comfort in earlier Hungarian promises that the country would not be the last to ratify.

While Hungary has put nothing openly on the table other than a vague discontent with Swedens attitude, fighter jets could be a negotiation card here as well, as Hungary leases Swedish JAS Gripen, a contract which is up for extension and possible expansion.

For NATO and the twenty-nine allies that want to see Sweden as ally number thirty-two as soon as possible, concerns are growing. The urgent executability of the new regional plans in the High North will be more difficult with Sweden on the outside of the Alliance. In addition, the inability to advance on enlargement weakens NATO politically at a critical time for European security, to the benefit of Russia. One problem is that Hungary might have nothing left to lose when it comes to reputational damage to NATO; on the contrary, Orbn might feel strengthened by his recent negotiation success in the European Union as a consequence of blocking support to Ukraine.

Anna Wieslander is the director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council and chair of the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) in Stockholm, Sweden.

The Turkish parliaments vote to approve Swedens accession into NATO brings a long and complicated process of assurance building nearer to completion. Several hurdles have been cleared since the February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine led Sweden to seek accession. The first was Ankaras insistence that Sweden cannot enter NATO as a haven for activities of the PKK, an anti-Turkish terror-designated movement by US and European Union law. Constitutional reforms and the advent of a Swedish government more sympathetic to Turkish security concerns have not fully satisfied the Turks but have provided enough of a start to indicate a trend in a positive directiona significant accomplishment. By agreeing with Turkey and Finland in a Trilateral Memorandum to heed each others security concerns with appropriate gravity, and by following through with substantive steps, Sweden overcame this obstacle.

The second obstacle has been the defense industrial imbroglio between the United States and Turkey, which became entangled with Swedens accession after politicians first in Washington and later in Ankara tied them together. With Turkey seeking new and upgraded F-16s after the United States expelled it from the F-35 programand with NATO clearly standing to benefit from updated Turkish air capabilitiesthe necessary congressional approvals became difficult even as Swedens accession lagged behind Finlands due to holdouts Turkey and Hungary. It was clear from the start that given congressional dislike for Erdoans government, it would take US President Joe Biden personally, and the executive branch collectively, exerting massive efforts to assure that F-16 approval would quickly follow (or occur simultaneously) with the Turkish parliaments approval for Sweden. It appears that Ankara now believes that the groundwork for F-16 passage has been effectively laid in Washington, and that the assurances are firm.

The final obstacle has been Russias campaign to persuade Turkey (and Hungary) not to allow Sweden in. There is a theme woven into the NATO expansion process of Turkey carefully balancing to keep Russia from defeating Ukraine but also offering some concessionslike not enforcing US sanctions and slowing Swedish accession. Yet with Russian President Vladimir Putin coming to Turkey in the coming weeks (as announced by Russian spokesman Dmitry Peskov today), it is a fair inference that Putin has pushed Erdoan as far as he can in the process and will shrug as it crosses the finish line.

There are still wildcards at play here. Hungarys invitation to Sweden to negotiate on the accession deal may delay things a while more, even after the Turkish parliament says yes. Erdogan may tarry a bit before publishing the parliamentary decision in the official gazette. Congress may say What F-16s? in a manner that damages both Swedish accession hopes and NATOs southern flank. One possible theory Ankara insiders are discussing is that Biden, accounting for congressional prerogatives, may have assured Erdoan that if the F-16s stall, he will lobby Germany aggressively to approve the sale of Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in lieu of F-16s. There are several alternative scenarios. For now, though, fans of the Alliance should take heart from the decision in Ankarait is moving in the right direction.

Rich Outzen is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council IN TURKEY and a geopolitical analyst and consultant currently serving private sector clients as Dragoman LLC.

Related Experts: Defne Arslan, Anna Wieslander, and Rich Outzen

Image: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg gather prior to their meeting, on the eve of a NATO summit, in Vilnius, Lithuania July 10, 2023. Henrik Montgomery /TT News Agency/via REUTERS

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Experts react: How close is Sweden to joining NATO after the Turkish parliament's approval? - Atlantic Council